For the uninitiated, “capsule hotels” refer to very cheap hotels where “rooms” are actually individual “capsules” (aka “pods”) that fit only a single person. This concept came from Japan during the 1980s Japanese economic peak but it seems it is now gaining international popularity. See Capsule hotel - Wikipedia for a more in-depth introduction to capsule hotels.
Then, it surprises me that the OSM wiki does not document how these should be tagged. I infer from this, this is new to the wiki and so there were no previous discussion nor consensus.
There are two ways I can see this:
Following motel’s example, since these capsule hotels are their own class of tourist housing, they should receive a new major tag (e.g. tourism=capsule)
In practice, capsule hotels do fit the description of a hostel (guests do rent “beds” inside a very large corridor), so they should receive a new minor tag (e.g. guest_house=capsule, as hinted by the iD editor)
Is this a requirement? I think of places that can accomodate two people but that I personally would still call capsules. See CityHub in Rotterdam for example:
The complication is extending beyond capsules, larger compartments with a proper bed where you can stand in, not stacked vertically https://en.first-cabin.jp https://first-cabin.jp/wp-content/themes/firstcabin_cms_v1/assets/images/spend/spend_01_photo03.jpg
A =capsule_hotel feature would be unsuitable for it. =hostel is defined by shared communal facilities, and the sleeping pod or compartment could be considered as a variation with more privacy than beds in the same room.
Furthermore, such a business can provide both pods and such “cabin” small rooms global cabin｜ドーミーイン【公式サイト】
As a comparison, some hall-of-residence can provide private rooms for each student individually, as far as an “en-suite” with private toilet. They should still be handled together with bunk bed shared rooms somehow.
I missed the capsule hotel part on my first reading. I’m copying the sentence here for the record:
カプセルホテルもこのタグを使います。
But still, we should at least stress that, despite the “hotel” name from its Japanese writing, these capsule hotels are actually OSM hostels. @Kovoschiz you gave the stats page for hostel=capsule, but alternatively I can also find the stats page for hotel=capsulehotel=capsule | Tags | OpenStreetMap Taginfo. Both were in use, and this may indicate wrong tagging somehow since capsule hotels are undocumented in the English wiki.
Anyway, the reason why capsule hotels were revolutionary at that time was that the Japanese discovered there could be a smaller unit than a room: the capsule. So, for example, @ivanbranco your photo contains 2 capsules. Many capsules are placed inside the same large room, or perhaps the same corridor.
Compare this with the unsanitary parallel “cage homes”, initially found in Hong Kong a long time ago and are allegedly phased out already Bedspace apartment - Wikipedia . Both are still some sort of OSM hostels.
It seems it would be best if we have a new auxiliary tag for capsule hotels. Something like tourism=hostel;hostel:capsules=yes might work.
“Cabin” capsule hotels as found by @Kovoschiz can also be similarly tagged as hostel:cabins=yes
This can describe capsule hotels with both capsules and cabins by simply having both auxiliary tags
This tag can be conveniently overloaded when capacity information is available (e.g. hostel:capsules=100)
Use “capsule” or “pods”? But then a more fundamental question is how to describe them accurately. The “traditional” form as invented is where you crawl in to sleep inwards, arranged in square-ish cells. The newer more comfortable ones are partitioned bunk beds, accessed and slept sideways.
Currently beds= and rooms= already exists. They could be extended somehow. At the same time, hostel= may still be used to characterize them in principle. *:cabins= should be avoided, as cabins= has a specific different meaning.
