The Japanese capsule hotel (coffin-like rooms stacked one on top of the other) was invented as ultra-cheap accommodation for office workers who “miss” the last train home – that’s code for get blind drunk. Next week, the concept gets a Cinderella makeover and lands at Gatwick, ready to welcome those who fear they might miss their flight. That’s not code for anything – we fun-loving Brits are simply terribly anxious about the airport experience these days.

While the Asian template is not completely without style, its less-than-salubrious image has obscured an eminently sensible proposition: sometimes you just need somewhere to lay your head. That, coupled with the 21st century’s fascination with nanotechnology – teeny phones, mini music systems, those cute little Blackberry keyboards – has made miniature marketable and means hoteliers are ready to gamble that trendy techie travellers won’t mind booking into a box.

Enter Yotel. Seven square metres of glamorous Conran-designed interiors and the stated aim of becoming the iPod of the hotel industry. A claim that is being taken seriously, because Yotel is the brainchild of the team behind Yo! Sushi, the company that made raw fish fashionable in a land that used to favour battered cod.

The Gatwick prototype opens next Sunday, and another will follow at Heathrow before the year’s end, but the company doesn’t intend to brake at the end of the runway.

The long-term strategy is global, opening dozens of Yotels in key international cities. It is already close to signing a deal in New York; London is being feverishly scouted too. A stylish, if small, room for £55 in some of the world’s most popular, not to mention expensive, destinations sounds very tempting ... on paper. But will these cool coops prove hideously claustrophobic in practice?

First impressions were favourable. So many airport hotels are actually a 20-minute drive away and deep in chintzville, but designer-dinky Yotel really is on the concourse, tucked into a corner of the South terminal arrivals hall. Check-in takes seconds at a touch-screen computer that spits out my key. I nod to the “galley” staff (Yotel-speak for the room-service team). The hotel has deliberately adopted the terminology of an aircraft as the intention is to create a business class-meets-Blade Runner ambience.

There are two types of “cabins”. The 38 seven-square-metre standard cabins are more like souped-up yacht bunks than Virgin Upper (although the same design guru, Priestman Goode, drew up both sets of blueprints). But they are classy and contemporary, with an elegant charcoal-grey leather surround for their large single beds and a flatscreen TV encased in oak veneer at their foot. An arm’s length away, through a glass partition, is the ensuite bathroom: Starck-esque stainless-steel fittings and a swanky rainforest shower. An overnight stay costs £55, room-only. Yotel says these beds can sleep two: I’d only advise that if you want to end the relationship. However, there’s also the option to book 4hr slots for £25 – and a couple could happily while away a delay in there.

The midget gems, though, are the eight Premium cabins, which cost £40 for four hours, £80 overnight. These feel genuinely luxurious. A soft white-and-grey colour scheme, coupled with lots of glass and mirrors, successfully lends the 10 square metres an impression of light and airiness. The techno wall has an oak finish, reminiscent of the dashboard of an old-fashioned Jag, and incorporates your TV, a desk and chair, an open wardrobe and shelves. There are thoughtful touches such as a decent hairdryer, eye masks and bespoke Arran Aromatics toiletries, but the pièce de résistance has to be the invitingly squidgy, cushioned-up couch that, at the touch of a button, becomes a full-length bed. When extended, there’s no more than 2ft left around it, but, with your suitcases tucked underneath, it doesn’t feel uncomfortably cramped; and there’s soothing mood lighting on the bedside control panel (which also has an MP3 docking station) to see off any claustrophobic stirrings.

As to shuteye, each bed has been custom-made and has an organic, breathable mattress and baby-soft linen. I slept reasonably well, although the lack of fresh air, natural light (Premium cabins have only a window onto the corridor, standard cabins nothing at all) and the buzz of the air con did reproduce that disorientating hermetic atmosphere of a plane a little too accurately for my liking.

When you’re awake, there are 60 TV channels, 80 radio channels, 5,000 music tracks and new-release DVDs (the last at an extra cost of £5) to keep you entertained. You can also order food through the TV. Ours was delivered within 15 minutes in nifty takeaway boxes with wooden cutlery. The menu concentrates on comfort foods, the sort granny could eat without putting her teeth in: fish cakes for £6.50, a lamb curry for £8.50, beers for £3, spirits for £3.50. In all, much more pleasant than the dehumanising experience at those busy concourse cafes. Or you can bring in your own food and ask the galley team to heat it up.

Of course, this isn’t your holiday, just a necessary evil en route to it, so, more than ever, price is a crucial factor. On Yotel’s opening night, July 1, I could book a double at the four-star Gatwick Hilton (within walking distance of the terminal but displaying all the charm of a sink estate from the 1970s) for £175, room-only – but the price does include 15 days’ free car parking. Yotel has no car park; however, a trawl of the discount sites meant I could get the whistles-and-bells, meet-and-greet valet car parking and a standard cabin for £161, and have enough left over for a celebratory bottle of wine.

Yotel also stacks up well if you’re just seeking respite from the crowds. Gatwick’s Lingfield Servisair Lounge, for example, costs £17.95pp for three hours, and although that does include free TV, magazines, alcoholic and soft drinks and snacks, there’s no complimentary internet, no privacy and it closes from 10pm until 5am. But the lounge is air side, so you can sit back and relax. Yotel is land side, which raises the dilemma of how much time to leave to clear security. Despite this drawback, if you have an early-morning flight, a lengthy scheduled layover or an unexpected delay, I’d still opt for Yotel every time. It’s definitely a hip new way to kip.

www.yotel.com

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