Sir Richard Branson. Photo: Prometheus72/Shutterstock.com

Hotel rooms boasting free Wi-Fi, water and yoga mats, minibars stocked with shop-priced items and bathrooms with the right lighting for putting on make-up are just some of the amenities being promised by Sir Richard Branson as he throws open the doors of his first Virgin hotel.

The billionaire businessman danced through the streets of Chicago as he officially opened the first of what he hopes will be a long list of similar establishments around the world.

The entrepreneur said he was inspired by his airline when he looked at the hotel industry and what he could add to it.

“Thirty years ago people asked what we could bring to the airline business that didn’t already exist, and we created Virgin Atlantic.

“Over the past 30 years people feel we have created an airline that is different to the bigger competitors and an airline that people enjoy flying on.

“We want to do exactly the same with hotels. We have a lot of people who fly on Virgin who would like the seamless experience when they arrive in Chicago or New York or San Francisco or wherever, that they can go to a Virgin hotel and when they get to the hotel they will get the Virgin experience.

“It will be a group of people running a wonderful place where they can have fun and where all the little details have been sorted out, where they are comfortable and cosy.”

He said it was his extensive travel­ling with his wife Joan that made him see all the areas where hotels could be improved.

“I’ve travelled with my wife to many hotels over the past 40 to 50 years and there have been plenty of things that have frustrated us.

“We tried to make sure we put all those things right. Female business travellers haven’t been thought about in the past,” he said.

“If you want to do your make-up in most hotels the lighting is dreadful and there is not enough space to put your make-up and not a big enough closet to hang your clothes and you’re charged through the nose for stupid little things like Wi-Fi and a bottle of water.

“We tried to think of all the things that people hate about hotels and put those right.”

Sir Richard added he was guided by his wife and daughter Holly when it came to making the rooms useful for women: “It was my wife and daughter and all the ladies that work for Virgin.”

He already has plans for hotels all over the US and hopes to open a property in London when the price is right, but he also has his eye on the cruise industry.

“We love to go into things where we feel we can go into it better than other people, and cruises is one area we will be going into. The experience we get from hotels will help us a lot there.

“There are going to be lots of other businesses that we will set up based on your frustration.

“Virgin Atlantic came about because I got bumped on a flight from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands and I ended up hiring a plane and getting a blackboard and putting on $39 one-way flights to the BVI, filling up my plane with all the people that got bumped.

“Airlines do bump people so I thought maybe we can do it better and I ended up ringing up Boeing and asking if they had any 747s for sale.”