Inside the Private Cinemas Reshaping Luxury Hotels in Lagos

The entrance is easy to miss, and that is rather the point. Tucked away from the main reception at The Delborough Hotel in Lagos, a short drive-in and a discreet door lead to a room that seats eight. The seats recline. The popcorn is warm. The film is whatever you want it to be, at whatever hour you choose. This is the Pod, a private cinema run by Nile Luxury Cinemas inside the hotel. It opened last November. Bukky George-Taylor, Nile's vice president and the person who built the concept into a working business, is still a little surprised by how fast people have taken to it. Bukky George-Taylor "I think we've opened a door to something," she says, "and people have just literally walked in." When we spoke, the Pod was a month shy of its first birthday and five bookings away from its thousandth. That is 995 sessions in a single room, each priced at ₦550,000. For anyone who thinks in revenue, the arithmetic is worth doing slowly. A converted room, run in three-hour sessions, has grossed just over half a billion naira in under a year. Each booking covers up to eight guests and comes with a buffet from the hotel's restaurant, so the hotel's kitchen earns alongside the screen. "I didn't even know that number," Bukky admits, laughing, when the team reads it out. The room itself was never designed as a cinema. "We converted it," she says. "We kitted it out, and it does what it does." For hotel owners sitting on an underused function room, that line may be the most interesting one in this story. The guest list is not quite who you might expect. Bukky describes a lot of ultra-high-net-worth clients who would never queue at a public cinema. Alongside them are couples on date nights, friends on a girls' night, pyjama parties and parents hosting their children's birthdays. What ties them together is control. The Pod is open 24 hours, and guests choose both the film and the time. "We have bookings at three in the morning," she says. "We have bookings at 1am." New releases show the same day they open in public cinemas, so nobody is trading choice for privacy. Then there is the simple pleasure of being able to talk. "If we went to a public cinema, we can't really interact," sh…