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CitizenM Still Moving Along, Planning Paris in 2014

It's been nearly 6 months since we last checked in on modern, budget hotel chain CitizenM, but of course that was only to steal a peek at the construction of their London property. Now the interest blossoms as CitizenM announce that they're doing a Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport hotel to open in 2014.

230 guestrooms will form the freestanding hotel and, the property will be a quick skip to hook up with the buses and RER trains directly heading to CDG.

Not much else is known as the hotel for now; after all, it's still got a year and a half to build up and out. Rest assured that we'll keep our ears and eyes open, however.

[Photo: Art History Images]

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A Little Sneaky Peek at the CitizenM London Thanks to Foursquare

Okay, here are two painfully obvious statements: We love hotels. We love Foursquare. Thus it's only natural that when modern-but-budget hotel chain CitizenM Hotels posts a photo to Foursquare, we perk up and pay attention. How fortunate too! This week, they added a very rough construction shot of their next property in development: CitizenM London Bankside.

So what can we see here? Well, apparently the underground support is all set and they're ready to begin building up some actual floors. By our last estimate, this CitizenM is scheduled for a 2012 opening, as is their first New York City United States location north of Times Square.

So while all those CitizenM execs spend the next year hopping the pond between NY and London, we hope they continue to keep their Foursquare fans updated further. Stalk Find them on Foursquare right here.

[Photo: CitizenM on Foursquare]

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CitizenM to Open in New York and London By 2012; Hong Kong, Paris and Zurich Are in the Works

CitizenM Amsterdam Schiphol

Back in September, we were nearly bonkers with excitement over the announcement that New York and London would be getting their very own CitizenM Hotels. Previously, we could only experience the seriously stylish budget hotels in Amsterdam and Glasgow.

Today we've got an update on the NYC and London locations...and beyond!

A CitizenM "citizen" tells us that the two London hotels--one at Tower Hill and the other at South Bank close to the Tate Modern Museum--will open in 2012. The New York one at 50th and Broadway in Times Square will also open in 2012. Hear that? That's us going bonkers again!

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Citizen M Glasgow Is Now Finally Open; London and NYC are Next

Where: 60 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, United Kingdom, G2 3BW

Yes! We’ve been waiting for a while now for citizenM to open its Glasgow property, and finally it’s here.

The citizenM Glasgow opened on Thursday and contains 198 rooms – or rather, pods – over eight floors on the corner of Hope and Renfrew Streets. It sounds pretty sexy, too – a red spiral staircase to reach the lobby, and a bar with huge windows looking out at the street below.

Don’t expect the rooms to be the same as the Amsterdam ones: the Glasgow property includes:

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Citizen M's Do Not Disturb Sign Puts It Simply: 'Someone is Naked in Here'

Last week, HotelChatter was uncharacteristically blushing at this Do Not Disturb sign from the Prime Hotel in Miami which showed the bottom half of a woman, dressed in sexy lingerie.

As it turns out, the Prime Hotel is not the only hotel who gets a little cheeky with their DND signs. Citizen M Hotels pointed us to this Flickr photo of their own DND sign which says, "Don't come in. There's someone naked in here." The sign is accompanied by a photo of a woman clutching a pillow over her privates. If that doesn't tell housekeeping to go away, we don't know what will.

Seen a cheeky Do Not Disturb sign? Send it to us!

[Photo: Alex James Brown/Flickr]

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Will CitizenM Open Its Glasgow Property This Summer?

Where: Glasgow, United Kingdom

Citizen M Schiphol. We likes the pod.

UPDATE: Citizen Diego at CitizenM tells us the 198-room hotel will indeed open this summer. The exact opening date will be published on the CitizenM Twitter and Facebook pages sometime soon.

Don’t you just love a hotel mystery? Yes, yes you do. So here goes. The funky Dutch budget brand citizenM was due to open its first still funky but non-Dutch outpost in Glasgow late last year. But it kind of disappeared off the radar.

We didn’t think any more about it, until we got the citizenM email newsletter through last week, and in it, they’re running a competition for a two-night stay in Glasgow.

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Amsterdam Gets a Second CitizenM

Where: Prinses Irenestraat 30, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1077 WX

Last summer marked the debut of citizenM hotels, a funky new affordable boutique brand whose first property was birthed at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. We hit up the hotel's opening party, spent a night inside and watched the place closely all the way to the day it won its very first award. And now, just under a year later, we're happy to announce the debut of the world's second citizenM property: the citizenM Amsterdam City.

Located on Prinses Irenestraat in Amsterdam's financial district (between the World Trade Centre and city center), the property has a major focus on art: "an ultra large beachy image" by Dutch artist Elspeth Diederix adorns the building's façade, and Andy Warhol's portrait of Queen Beatrix is displayed in the lobby.

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Last Chance for $50 Rooms at CitizenM Amsterdam

Where: Jan Plezierweg, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1118 BB

These days, a good deal isn't hard to find, but that doesn't mean we're going to stop pointing them out to you. Kind of like how your mom always nags you to grow up and move out already no matter how many times you tell her to back off.

Wednesday is the last day for you to take advantage of the 39 euros per night deal available from citizenM Amsterdam Airport, which equals about $50 per night and is refreshingly uncomplicated. From the hotel:

From February 4th to the 11th
25,000 rooms in the year of 2009
One room, any day of the year, is only 39 euros.

Really, there's only so much hand-holding we can do here, people. So unless you want to provide us with your credit card number (it's OK, you can trust us), you're going to have to be big kids and book this one all by yourself. Head over to CitizenM's website and get to it.

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CitizenM is All Grown Up, Earns Its First Award

Where: Jan Plezierweg, 1118 BB , Amsterdam, Netherlands

“This was perhaps the most hotly contested decision I have seen the judging panel have to make in the six years I have been involved in these awards.”

No, that’s not a judge from Dancing with the Stars—it’s Matt Turner, editor-in-chief of Sleeper magazine, which is a magazine about hotel design, development and architecture, not about boring stuff.

The magazine recently awarded CitizenM hotels with the European Hotel Design Award of the Year, as well as awards in three other categories for innovation, technology and graphic design. We already knew guests love the chain, now it seems the rest of the world is catching on, too.

Of course, this news just thrills CitizenM. “Our team and partners worked hard to create an innovative, contemporary hotel for the cost conscious traveler,” CitizenM CEO Michael Levie said in a statement.

All the canned PR speak aside, this sounds like a pretty big coup for a hotelier that just opened it’s first hotel at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (pictured) in June—and even more so considering the plethora of competition of boutiquey, budget-friendly hotels across Europe—wouldn’t you agree? Or are we aSleeper on the job here? Heh, heh, eh… oh, my.

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CitizenM Schiphol :: You Love It, You Want Some More of It

Where: Jan Plezierweg, 1118 BB , Amsterdam, Netherlands

My, my, you people waste no time rating a new hotel, do you? Citizen M's outpost at Amsterdam Schiphol airport hasn't even been open six months and you all rush to the Internets to talk about it. So what do you have to say about it?

In short, you love it. Here are some of your choice words:

"Everything was clean, worked perfectly, HOT water, fluffy white pillows... and friendly, helpful staff."

"The rooms are small, but well laid out so that the room feels bigger than it is."

"If you don't mind a 20-minute train ride to get into the city, this is the place to stay in Amsterdam."

"I wouldn't recommend this hotel to older people or people with kids, but for single travelers or couples, it's perfect."

OK, we get it! You like Amsterdam Schiphol, you really like it! But you might have to curb your enthusiasm for a CitizenM Hotel near you. The hotel's promising more locations, including Glasgow, but no other new cities have been formally announced.

Had a different experience at the hotel? Share it with us in the comments.

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CitizenM Coming to Glasgow, With Amsterdam-Made Rooms

We already heard that the innovative pod-ness that is the Citizen M hotel chain is planning on opening the CitizenM Glasgow sometime around October next year, but now we're hearing more info about it.

The Scottish version of CitizenM will have 180 rooms and they're building it next to the Theatre Royal. Well, in fact, they're building most of it in Amsterdam: all the "pod" rooms will actually be built in a factory in Amsterdam, then shipped to Glasgow and "slotted into place on top of each other". Neat.

The marketing fizz is always that CitizenM is "affordable luxury"--affordable in Glasgow apparently means rooms starting from £54 (US$100) which we have to agree is reasonable. Since CitizenM plans to have these identical rooms wherever they build their hotels, you can pretty much refer to our in-depth Amsterdam review to figure out if you'll like the Glasgow version or not. Easy, isn't it?

[Photo of CitizenM Amsterdam room: Sacred Destinations]

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CitizenM Launches Social Network Thing for Moody People

Where: Jan Plezierweg, 1118 BB, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Lately, we've been pondering the utility, acceptance and sketch-potential of social networks within hotels. It's not necessarily hotels' Facebook or MySpace pages we're concerned with here (although some hotels are doing good stuff with those things, and hooray for them!).

We mean hotels who set up their own networks -- sort of like the Pod Hotel's Pod Community Blog -- where people who are staying in a particular hotel at a given time can communicate with each other and find other same-time guests to meet up with, hang out with, or "et cetera" with. Will people buy into the concept? Will it turn out to be a sketchy Craiglist-esque collection of people advertising for casual anonymous "encounters?"

Well, we're still wondering. But CitizenM in Amsterdam has launched a kind of social network on their website; something new that may prove to be the guinea pig to watch for our answer.

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