Tents in hotel rooms? Bringing the great outdoors into the city

Hospitality around the world has come up with an extraordinary amount of innovation recently, from flash sales and flexible booking, to robot cleaners and cocktail home deliveries. Now, with people thoroughly fed up with being stuck indoors, the industry is finding novel ways to bring the outdoors into town.

In sardine-packed Hong Kong, Ocean Park has turned every kid’s dream to stay overnight in a theme park into a reality. While the borders have been closed, leaving Hongkongers unable to travel, a glamping site has been set up between the park’s thrill rides, three-storey aquarium and cable car station. Costing HK$2,800 (£265) for four, the price includes four two-day park passes; breakfast, lunch and dinner; and a night-time tour of the snowy South Pole Spectacular penguin enclosure.

Meanwhile, Ritz-Carlton hotels, from Miami to Singapore, are now offering families the option to camp – in their rooms. Tents are set up for little ones, complete with high-thread count linens and feather duvets, and a selection of old-school games are provided, including Scrabble,

Monopoly, and Twister (Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore “Ritz Kids Night Safari” from US$550 [£404], including breakfast; ritzcarlton.com).

With less road traffic and more cycling lanes appearing as a result of the pandemic, the Onomichi U2 in Hiroshima has started offering a “Cycling and Relaxing” stay, with bicycles available for rent and a cycle-through café counter where you can pick up chunks of cheesecake. Closer to home, the dueto-be-opened Melia Innside hotel in Newcastle is also adding free bicycles for guests. Just book the day before and you’re free to set off for the Northumbrian coast or Hadrian’s Wall.

Further south, the Brighton Harbour Hotel has introduced watercolour painting kits with easels, canvases, bushes and paints, for guests to immortalise the town’s pastel-hued alleyways, pretty piers and pebble beaches. And London’s Belmond Cadogan is giving guests exclusive keys to access the manicured lawns, ancient mulberry trees and colourful flower beds inside the private Cadogan Place Gardens.

You’re not being taken for a ride. This is glamping in a theme park – Hong Kong style