At hotel Acropolis in the family seaside resort of Middelkerke (West Flanders), you can now book a double room for couples who like to sleep separately. The hotel now has 20 such rooms. The tourist agency Tourism Flanders speaks of a rather unique concept.
The so-called SAT rooms, short for ‘sleeping apart together’, consist of one single room that includes a bed, a lounge area and a bathroom where you can live together as a couple. And then there is also a separate bedroom that you can close off when one of the partners wants to sleep separately and go to sleep.
Is sleeping apart together a taboo?
Sleeping separately doesn't have to be a taboo, thinks hotel manager Isabel Gryson: ‘People can be very closety about it or aren't yet ready to talk about it openly. They don't need to be. We deal with this phenomenon very discreetly at our hotel. We have noticed that among our customers there is a demand for this option . If you look up the statistics, you quickly find that 1 in 4 couples sleeps separately.’
Well-rested on holiday
‘Regular customers sometimes do open up about why they prefer to sleep separately. For example, because one of the partners snores, or because someone has to wear a mask due to a sleep apnoea. Or if the woman has to breastfeed at night, or when partners have different life rhythms, and so on.’
‘At home, you can sleep separately in comfort. And when you go to a hotel, suddenly you do have to lie next to your partner, while for some people that is not their habit. That’s why, along with the extra sleeping area, we also provide an extra bathroom equipped with a loo. That way you won't wake each other up at night or early in the morning either. This also makes the room suitable for 2 friends.’
Focusing on togetherness
‘Unlike the usual family room, the SAT room only has one entrance,’ Gryson explains. Family rooms can often also be sold separately, which is not the case with a SAT room.
‘Here we really emphasise the feeling of being together in a room. You do everything together in the SAT rooms. Sitting together in the lounge area, watching TV, ... Only sleeping is done separately. But you certainly don't feel like you're living separately!’