Hotel to offer tiny rooms for tiny budgets in Shanghai

Budget travelers are set to get a new type of cheap accommodation option in Shanghai, although claustrophobia sufferers may find it unsuitable.

The city's first capsule hotel will be opened near the north square of Shanghai Railway Station in Zhabei district this year, according to Xia Quangen, the man behind the forthcoming hotel that he has dubbed "C Baby."

Targeting backpackers and job hunters, the hotel will charge less than 100 yuan ($14.7) a night for each 1-meter-high, 1-meter-wide and 2 -meter-long berth, Xia told the Oriental Morning Post yester-day. Month-long rentals will also be available for 1,000 yuan ($147.1).

The hotel takes its cue from Japan's widespread capsule hotels. However, the "C Baby" capsules will have curtains instead of doors.

This is not the first time the capsule concept has been used in China.

Huang Rixin, a 78-year-old retired engineer, installed "capsule apartments" of just 2.2 square meters in rooms he rented in Beijing in March. However, Huang was forced to remove them on Saturday, having fallen foul of the city's housing regulations, which require high-rise rental apartments to be at least 7.5 square meters in size for safety reasons.