Finger on the button
An old nuclear bunker with ex-military beds, concrete floors, no heating, no cupboards and no privacy: not an obvious recipe for success. But Switzerland's Null Stern Hotel (zerostarhotel.com; beds from £15), pictured below, has become the runaway hit of the year. After three months of being open, it has been nominated for a gong from the Worldwide Hospitality awards, taken bookings up to 2012, and has plans to expand into a dozen countries - with the UK near the top of the list. But where will they find a suitable nuclear bunker? "We are in discussions with various parties," they say mysteriously.
Disneyfication
There's only one Waldorf Astoria. Until October 1, that is, when the most venerable hotel in New York opens a sister property - in Disney World, of all places. The Waldorf Astoria Orlando (waldorfastoriaorlando.com; doubles from £160) promises to "emulate the elegance and grandeur" of its namesake, but it'll be surrounded on three sides by the theme park, so it's sort of hard to see it matching the gravitas of the original. Still, you get a golf course and poolside cabanas to compensate. Not room for many of those on Manhattan.
Tuk-tuk trek
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Motorised tricycles zip around city streets from Delhi to Phnom Penh, but they're not much good for long journeys, owing to their tendency to fall to bits. So it'll be interesting to see how many of the 25 teams in the Lanka Challenge (lankachallenge.com) make it. Sri Lanka's first tuk-tuk rally starts today, a madcap race covering 750 miles in 10 days across mountains and rainforest, with (astonishingly) the full approval of the country's tourism chiefs. Should be quite an event to watch - just stay away from tight bends.
No cover-up
New York's trendy Standard has acquired a reputation for being, well, rather liberated; the hotel even invited guests to post pix of their intimate in-room moments on its Facebook page. But they didn't ask anyone to draw the curtains. Outraged neighbours complain that they're regularly assailed by the sight of couples in flagrante through the floor-to-ceiling windows. They've even seen porn movies being shot. "It's not what we want in this neighbourhood," said a local. And the neighbourhood being? The Meatpacking District.
Sky-high Sydney
Australia's latest luxury retreat is the brainchild of the Dubai-based Emirates Resorts, but it looks surprisingly bling-free. Wolgan Valley, in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, sits on a 4,000-acre nature reserve, without a skyscraper in sight: entertainment is wildlife safaris and aboriginal heritage tours instead of shopping or indoor skiing. The one thing they have kept Dubai-style stratospheric is the prices: doubles from £850 per night (emirateshotelsresorts.com).