World's First Flying Hotel - Hotelicopter Hoax

Summary:
Message claims that attached photographs show a unique flying luxury hotel called the "Hotelicopter" that is soon to begin its first tours (Full commentary below).



Status:
April Fool's joke and marketing campaign

Example:(Submitted, April 2009)


Commentary:

The "Hotelicopter" is an April Fool's Joke

In late March and early April 2009, stories about the "Hotelicopter" - a luxuriously appointed flying hotel - begin circulating via travel blogs and websites, social networking sites, and email. The stories included photographs of the Hotelicopter along with shots of rooms available for guests. A video of the Hotelicopter in action was also posted to YouTube. Supposedly, the Hotelicopter's maiden voyage is scheduled for June 2009 with other "tours" to follow.

According to the stories, the Hotelicopter is modelled on an old Soviet Mil V-12 helicopter and features 18 luxuriously-appointed soundproof rooms complete with queen sized beds, wireless Internet and room service.

However, the "Hotelicopter" was in fact an April Fools Day prank launched by a hotel search engine company. In a clever marketing ploy, the company used the prank as a promotional tool for a new hotel search engine website, hotelicopter.com. An article about the prank on m-Travel.com notes:

A company, after being in news for its "flying-hotel joke", has launched a new brand for its hotel search engine, hotelicopter.

hotelicopter, which was previously known as VibeAgent, searches 30 travel sites in real-time, aggregating hotel room rates, availability, photos and video to instantly reveal where to find the best hotel deals. It has access to more than 65 travel partners and 150,000 hotels.

Hotelicopter.com owns up to the prank on its site blog:

Oh, and yes, we’re the folks behind the flying hotel of the same name. We were just having some fun, and had no idea it was going to blow up like it did - we've gotten about 1.5 million page and video views just in the last week - so thank you very much for all the attention and support - and hopefully we made you smile

A copy of the original flying hotel prank website is still available on the hotelicopter.com website.

The photographs of the supposed cabin interiors on the Hotelicopter were in fact taken from the Yotel website, apparently with Yotel's full compliance and knowledge. Yotel offers tiny but very well appointed hotel rooms inside airports.

For the record, only two Mil V-12 helicopters were ever built. The first prototype was destroyed in a crash in 1969. The one remaining Mil V-12 is now displayed at the Monino air force museum in Moscow.

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References:
Hotelicopter is real, though simply a travel search engine
hotelicopter.com
Announcing the world's first flying hotel!
Yotel
Yotel Was In On the 'Hotelicopter' Hoax the Whole Time
Mil V-12
Mil Mi-12 Homer

Last updated: 15th April 2009
First published: 15th April 2009

Write-up by Brett M. Christensen