Shrinking hotel rooms - FT.com Compact hotels are based on the idea that many will accept a smaller room and reduced facilities for a lower price and a good location. So what's on offer - and how tiny is too tiny? What's out there? CitizenM has 11 compact hotels either open or planned. Yotel has four and easyHotel has 20, while Premier Inn is trialling "hub" rooms (below) and will be opening its first full hub hotel in central London in 2014. Prices range from under £50 to more than £200. How small is too small? According to consultant Hotel & Leisure Advisors, median room size in the top 10 US hotel brands ranges from 6.3 square metres to 33 sq m. The rooms at the compact hotels above range from 7 sq m to 17 sq m. Professor Graham Miller of Surrey university says it is difficult to place a definitive lower limit on what constitutes reasonably sized accommodation as some countries have a preference for larger rooms. "I stayed in a hotel in Osaka train station which was the width of a single bed," he says. Yet the location could not have been more convenient and it was fine. Business travellers who get booked into compact hotels might also consider that some companies ask staff to share accommodation - a small room may be preferable to a snoring colleague. Does small mean cheap? Not really. The compacts say they still offer a high-end experience. "The difference is we select services, so we don't have a full restaurant and we don't have a pool," says CitizenM chief operating officer Michael Levie.