The rise of the 'afternoon delight' hotel booking

Until very recently if you wanted to use a Paris hotel room for a couple of hours in the daytime - whatever your purposes - then you had a choice.

Either you paid top whack to keep the room for the night as well, even though you didn't plan to use it.

Or you went to a sleazy dive in a street like the Faubourg St Denis, near the Gare du Nord - the sort of place that used to be referred to familiarly in English as a "knocking shop".

But lovers of the world rejoice! Times have changed.

Not for the first time, liberal economics have joined forces with liberal sexuality, this time to popularise the "afternoon delight".

French website Dayuse.com is even now ushering in daytime guests to crisp-sheeted bedrooms, complete with trouser-press and kettle, from Sao Paolo to Singapore - and of course in Paris.

The business case is obvious.

The greatest asset for a hotel is its rooms - but most of the time (i.e. in daylight hours) most of them are empty.

In many of the world's big cities, hotels have been hard hit by home-share sites like Airbnb. In Paris there are now more Airbnb rooms on offer than hotel rooms.

Every device to recoup lost income is welcome - so what better way than to sell your rooms twice over?

"We are offering hotels the chance to boost income by 10%," says Lorenzo Sciotti, Dayuse's business development manager in London.

"And for customers - they get a hotel room for a few hours at a fraction of the price they would pay for a full day."