Skift Take

A number of hotel industry publications, like Attractions Management and HotelsMag.com, ran with this story today as if it was a real one.

A press release put out by Mobilona Space Hotels today introduced the young hospitality company’s plans for a new hotel in Barcelona, dubbed Barcelona Island.

And boy is it ugly, combining the silliest of Flash Gordon-inspired “space” architecture with the worst of 1980s Italian furniture design.

The good news is that it’s not likely to ever be built. Beyond the press release about the Barcelona plan and similar properties in Los Angeles and Hong Kong, there’s nothing to suggest the company has the experience or resources to build the hotels or secure any financing. Apogee Investors, a self-described specialist in “global real estate acquisitions” has no information about other projects on its website. Apogee registered and is in charge of both Barcelona Island’s and Mobilona’s websites from an address in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Mobilona promises or suggests a number of “features” on its site, but the one that will likely raise the concerns of anyone worried about a potential scam is the process by which people can apply to be “owners” and reserve units at pre-construction prices. “Owners” can then rent the units back to Mobilona to manage as hotel rooms or time-share units.

A Mobilona representative responding to a media inquiry from Skift stated that “four Barcelona municipalities are currently competing for the location” where the island could be built, and that “We will release the final locations for Barcelona, Hong Kong and Los Angeles at a later time.”

Visitors to the site can also apply to be “Space Ambassadors.” The site describes their duties best:

“Qualified candidates will be appointed as Space Ambassadors to record a visual message which is expected to travel between 10 – 20 years to reach the closest earth-like planets. Candidates will also be able to participate in an extraterrestrial project which Mobilona will soon announce to the world.”

Along the bottom of its webpage Mobilona has photos of people it says are ambassadors, but they more closely resemble 30-somethings whose head-shots were scraped off a dating site.

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Tags: barcelona, real estate

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