Royal Citizens

Queen Marie and I were invited to CitizenM hotel last night to do a right Royal nosey. This is a chain of boutique hotels, which opened the doors to it's members club here in Glasgow two weeks ago.

The core idea of CitizenM is "affordable luxury". The real reason we were there though to take a look at the members club, SocietyM, which wishes to provide a cool, relaxing atmosphere for the cities creatives and 'suits' alike.

The idea is to provide contemporary meeting spaces to give a home to "business nomads", such as freelance designers, who are often forced to have meetings in coffee shops. As an idea, it's great.

The hotel and club provides amazing surroundings with the emphasis on design and art, which is literally everywhere in the hotel. Every bit of space seems to be alive with creativity.

As a designer, this space is a god-send for creatives. It's inspiring, considered, cool and relaxed. Queen Marie, as we sat upstairs after taking some photos, both agreed that it was the only hotel where we would actively want to wander around and use the seating areas, as they did not feel at all like a hotel. There is truly so much to look here.

We would be lying if we said it was cheap. It's not. An individual membership to SocietyM, will set you back £50 a month (introductory rate) and it gives you use of SocietyM for only 100 days a year. You also still have to pay for meeting rooms, which for up to 8 people will set you back £150 for a full day. As a member you get 20% discount off that rate, but it's still pretty hefty.

If you become a 'founding' member, of which they are only 84 places, the benefits are better, but it will set you back £600 for the year.

For some business people though this will be completely worth it to have such amazing surroundings to conduct meetings.

Queen Michelle