CitizenM to be first hotel group to open in the metaverse
The hospitality leader will test the virtual water with a ‘property’ funded through NFTs
CitizenM has announced it will open a hotel in the metaverse, following on the heels of architecture firms such as Zaha Hadid Architects and BIG, which have already pioneered virtual environments in the growing digital realm. The project will be funded through the sale of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) – increasingly traded units of data which have become most closely associated with the art world.
If this all sounds a little indecipherable, it’s because both the metaverse and NFTs are emerging and relatively untested concepts. The metaverse itself is perhaps best understood as a virtual universe, accessed through virtual reality and made up of worlds that continue to exist whether they are being occupied or not.
CitizenM will launch the project by buying a site in The Sandbox (one of the metaverse’s constituent worlds), on which it plans to build a virtual hotel for avatars to work, sleep and play, much as they would in a physical property.
“We’ve always been a disruptor in the hospitality industry,” Robin Chadha, the group’s chief marketing officer is quoted as saying, “so this is a space we want to explore. As we develop the hotel we will create interactive moments and possibly even use this as a way to test new ‘real world’ ideas.
Read more about exciting projects in the hospitality industry here.
