Written and curated by Garri Rayner, Hotel Haiku is a collection of the world’s most interesting hotels and notels where the only description for each one is expressed in haiku. This is the place to visit if you want to find some of the most interesting, idyllic, out of the ordinary accomodation ideas for your holidays, a site that puts poetry into hotel booking according to the BBC travel site. Supertacular interviewed Garri Rayner in order to discover his vision and ideas behind Hotel Haiku and share them with you.
Treehotel Mirror : Harads – Sweden
Treehotel Birdsnest : Harads – Sweden
Barin Ski Resort : Shemsak – Iran
Consolación : Aragón – Spain
Remota : Patagonia – Chile
Das Park : Ottensheim – Austria
How did you come up with the idea of creating a travel website ?
I specialise in creating niche travel accommodation sites such as Holiday Pad and Go Glamping, so it’s an area. I have some experience and involvement in. Hotel Haiku is the first of a few little accommodation websites I have on the drawing board for 2012.
What is the secret behind the word haiku?
A haiku is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by consisting of 17 syllables: 5 on the first line, 7 on the second and 5 on the last. From Wikipedia: Some haiku poets are concerned with their haiku being expressed in one breath, and the extent to which their haiku focus on “showing” as opposed to “telling”. This is the genius of haiku using an economy of words to paint a multi-tiered painting, without “telling all”. As you can see from my site, my haiku adheres to the 17 syllable count but also through the use of abstract thumbnail shots which, if you like, create a multi-tired painting without “telling all”. This is very deliberate and sometimes getting the right abstract image can take longer than actually writing the haiku!
25 Hours : Hamburg – Germany
Aire de Bardenas : Navarra – Spain
Landscape Hotel : Gudbrandsjuvet – Norway
Michelberger Hotel : Berlin – Germany
Is this an one person effort? do you personally choose the places that will be presented on HotelHaiku?Â
Yes, it’s just me though some of the places choose themselves.
Most of the hotels on HotelHaiku are characterized by a spectacular and often innovative architectural design. Is this a key element for a hotel in order to be included in your list? Â
This is certainly the starting point but there are other factors involved too such as location and whether it has interesting photos where I can see the opportunity of creating a textured abstract thumbnail. There are some places not on Hotel Haiku that are no doubt amazing, but if I can’t see the visual possibilities for creating an interesting abstract thumbnail shot, then I can’t choose them.
Tubohotel : Tepoztlan – Mexico
Stokkøya Sjøsenter : Stokkøy – Norway
Rock It Suda : Jeongseon – South Korea
Michelberger Hotel : Berlin – Germany
Where do your visitors usually come from? What is your number one destination that your visitors prefer?
To be honest, I don’t really know and I’m not particularly interested either. As a project, Hotel Haiku has no interest in web stats, Google or other metrics, and neither does it have much interest in social media. The site and its simplicity has attracted the attention of the media worldwide. I’ve heard people say they enjoy browsing through the site even though they’re not looking for hotels. I guess people are drawn by curiosity and the site was designed to be easily browsed. In fact, you can navigate your way around it without the aid of a mouse by simply using keyboard shortcuts:
J — next hotel
K — previous hotel
I — index
X — index
H — top of page
R — random hotel
By the way I haven’t seen any greek property in HotelHaiku. Are you going to include any in the future?
Yes, I’ll get around to it at some stage. I was planning to add Semiramis in Athens, designed by Karim Rashid, but quickly got bored of it. Instead I’ll probably add the following places, both of which I helped bring to a wider audience via my Holiday Pad site, and both of which really intrigue me:
9 Hours : Kyoto – Japan
Landscape Hotel : Gudbrandsjuvet – Norway
Villa Vals : Graubünden – Switzerland
Cocoon House : Victoria – Australia
Source: www.hotelhailku.com
Dar Hi Hotel
Wanderlust Hotel
Poseidonion Grand Hotel