Forget a room with a view -- or even much room. The latest development in the hotel industry has travelers bunking in tiny, sometimes windowless, quarters.

In London, there's a new hotel that books rooms by the hour, has an entryway that looks like a spaceship and windows that open into an indoor hallway. In the Netherlands, the new Qbic hotel rents "cubis" the size of a walk-in closet. Opening soon is an Amsterdam hotel made entirely of small, prefabricated pods, built off-site.

Rapidly...