A new London Hyatt will have rooms that are just 96 square feet in size

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The Hyatt Place London Paddington was originally scheduled to open earlier this year and as I was really looking forward to seeing what the new property would offer, I was a little disappointed when I discovered (back in April) that the property wouldn’t be opening its doors until 2025.

Now, however, having just taken a look at the property’s website for the first time in a few months and having caught up with some of the newer details that have been published, the delay seems immaterial and I now have little interest in trying this property out.

Hyatt Place London Paddington

The Hyatt Place London Paddington will be based at 29/23 Norfolk Square and will be the result of the conversion of a truly terrible 1970s hotel (the Norfolk Plaza Hotel) into something a little more tailored to the 21st century.

The location of the hotel will make it very convenient for arrivals from Heathrow (Paddington mainline station is just 4 minutes’ walk away and offers direct service to/from Heathrow via the Elizabeth Line and the Heathrow Express) and for access to west and central London, but the great location cannot possibly make up for what appears to be the property’s huge weakness – the size of its rooms.

I have to confess that when I first saw the size of the rooms the property plans to offer, I was reading the details on the app and I was convinced that either I was misreading something, misunderstanding something, or that there had been a mistake. Apparently not.

Having now viewed all the room details on the desktop site, what I saw in the app appears to be confirmed and, frankly, what this new Hyatt plans to offer is a little incredible … and not in a good way!

The Hyatt Place London Paddington will, apparently, offer five different room types and one ‘suite’ and this is what the various options will be:

• 1 Queen Bed (96 – 161 sq ft)
• 1 Queen Bed High Floor (107 – 161 sq ft)
• 1 Queen Bed Accessible Shower (129 – 161 sq ft)
• 1 King Bed (118 – 182 sq ft)
• 1 King Bed High Floor (107 – 150 sq ft)
• Duplex Suite (204 – 226 sq ft)

Let some of those numbers sink in for a little bit.

• Some of the entry-level rooms will offer less than 100 square feet of space … and that includes the bathroom.
• Given that the minimum area that a UK Queen Bed will take up is 25 square feet, the maximum amount of space that some of the entry-level rooms will offer is 71 square feet. That includes the bathroom.
• Only the duplex suites will be over 200 square feet in size.
• Most rooms will be under 165 square feet in size.
• Some of the entry-level rooms at the Hyatt Place London Paddington will be less than half the size of the entry-level rooms at the Hyatt Place London City East.
• The largest rooms at the Hyatt Place London Paddington will be less than 10 square feet bigger than the smallest rooms at the Hyatt Place London City East.
• If you book a King Bed and get ‘upgraded’ to a King Bed High Floor room, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with a smaller room than the one you booked.

How is this a Hyatt property?

Sure, hotel rooms in European cities are, generally speaking, smaller than rooms you’ll find in cities in the US and Asia (this is usually due to the fact that European cities have evolved over centuries while a lot of Asian and US cities are, comparatively, new), but these room sizes are ridiculous.

If you’re feeling bored and want a good laugh, do what I did. Get out a tape measure and map out 96 square feet in your home to see exactly just how much space that is (approximately 9’10” x 9’10” or 3m x 3m) and then remind yourself that this space has to house a 25 sq ft bed and a bathroom as well as leaving some space for a guest to move around.

This isn’t a hotel room. It’s an oversized closet. And I have no idea how Hyatt thinks that this will appeal to anyone invested in the World of Hyatt program.

Yes, of course there’s a market for properties that offer rooms that are this small, but that market is one that’s mostly dominated by students and backpackers and leaving aside the fact that I’m pretty sure that students and backpackers aren’t usually Hyatt’s target demographic, I’m confident that when we see the room rates that this property will charge, they won’t be anywhere near what people who book oversized closets are happy to pay.

Even if we assume that only a handful of rooms will be as small as 96 sq ft and that most will be bigger, the numbers still suggest that the average room size is unlikely to be more than 140 – 150 square feet, and that’s tiny.

Given that there’s no shortage of hotels in the area and that some of these hotels belong to respected budget chains where the rooms are (relatively) inexpensive and not ridiculously small (e.g. Premier Inn), I’m not sure that the owners of the Hyatt Place London Paddington have really thought through their plans for this property, and I’m not sure they know who their target audience is.

More importantly, I’m not sure why the owners want their property to be part of the World of Hyatt.

Presumably, there’s a cost to being given access to Hyatt’s membership base, but as I suspect that most people who use the Hyatt website to book their stays (rather than an OTA) are not going to be looking for rooms that are as small as the ones being offered by the Hyatt Place Paddington, is that cost really going to be justifiable?

Sure, having the Hyatt brand associated with the hotel will probably give it a bit of a extra credibility when people see it on Expedia, Priceline, TripAdvisor, etc…, but the issue of the tiny rooms will remain, and as most people who are happy to book a shoe box are a lot more focused on price than they are on brand name, why pay for the brand?

I don’t get it.

Bottom line

When the Hyatt Place London Paddington finally opens its doors, the size of the entry level rooms will start at just 96 square feet and none of the standard rooms at the property will be larger than 182 square feet making this, I suspect, an unappealing option for a lot of World of Hyatt fans regardless of how the hotel ends up pricing its rooms.

Personally, was looking forward to checking this property out at some point in 2025, but given what I know now, I think I’ll be giving it a miss.

What do you think? Would you stay at the Hyatt Place London Paddington if your room was likely to be between 96 and 160 sq ft in size? 

Featured image courtesy of Hyatt.