Picture: Instagram / prodir_official
A hotel room with no walls or ceiling? With the high crime rate in Mzansi, we can’t imagine any South Africans getting any shuteye while staying there.
The zero-star hotel, located on a roadside next to a petrol station in the village of Saillon, in the southern canton of Valais, Switzerland, however, already has a whopping 6,500 people on the waiting list despite only opening for guests from 1 July to 18 September.
Speaking to Euronews, Swiss concept artists Frank and Patrick Riklin said sleep is not the point in this anti-idyllic version.
“What’s important is reflecting about the current world situation. Staying here is a statement about the need for urgent changes in society,” they said.
Guests are invited in their ‘half sleep’ to consider topics like climate change, war, and humanity’s endless competition for perfection and the damage it causes the planet.
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“If we continue in the same direction we are today, there might be more anti-idyllic places than idyllic,” said Patrick.
The project, developed with hotelier Daniel Charbonnier, also has three other zero star hotels in a relatively quiet vineyard and on a picturesque hillside in Switzerland.
The twin brothers said staying at the zero-star hotel is a statement about the need for urgent change in society.
The Mayor of Saillon, Charles-Henri Thurre said the anti-idyllic room for them is about thinking of today and to maybe act on the many problems society worldwide faces.
“Whether it is people having a roof over their heads, or whether it is about fuel consumption, here next to the side of the road with the cars passing, you can reflect on all of these things.”
If this experience is on your travel bucket list, the price of a night’s imperfect sleep will cost you around 322 euros (R5,460.51).
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*Compiled by Xanet Scheepers.