Good Morning Hotels
1988-1999

Establishing a new hotel concept

One of the most critical issues in offshore accommodation is to how use every inch available to create a nice living environment in confined areas. This insight created another entrepreneurial idea: to provide low cost hotel accommodation for everyone. Inspired by companies such as McDonalds and IKEA, the JCE Group thus established Good Morning Hotels in 1988 with the ambition to create a chain of budget hotels which were either owned by the JCE Group or run by third parties under franchising agreements.

The hotels were designed by the famous Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh and built around the same modular system used for the accommodation, catering and living spaces of offshore and passenger vessels. Each new built hotel consisted of 69 small 12 m2 rooms that all looked the same and which all had four beds. Everything which can be considered as excess in any form (such as luxury restaurants, pools, saunas, conference rooms, etc.) was excluded in order to keep room rates as low as possible. The hotels were located outside city centers, but close to larger highways. The room rates were fixed regardless of occupancy levels, at about half the price of an average hotel room.

Expansion

The first hotel based on the modular system was built in Jönköping in 1988, followed by Lerum, Örebro, Lund, Mölndal, etc. On average, two hotels were constructed per year. Soon the company also introduced a franchise concept, which allowed it to expand even further including hotels operated by franchisees. The properties of the franchise hotels were of “normal” design, but had a location and overall concept that was in line with that of Good Morning Hotels.

A floating hotel was also established in central Stralsund, Germany, in 1990. The hotel consisted of a 120 room floating structure built in accordance with onshore building regulations, and provided Good Morning Hotels with an attractive central location at a low cost. The floating hotel was later moved to Gothenburg, Sweden.

The Good Morning Hotel concept, i.e. non exclusive rooms in combination with very attractive room rates, was well received by potential guests, which resulted in overall high occupancy rates.

Exit

In 1999, Good Morning Hotels was sold to the international hotel chain Accor. At the time of sale, Good Morning Hotels had 21 hotels, of which 17 hotels in Sweden and 4 in Finland. Most of the hotels are today operated by Accor under the name IBIS.

Selected case studies