If you've ever been holed up in an airport and wished for a spot you could just get away from it all--a company called Ziosk Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla., has you in mind.

Ziosks, a cross between a kiosk and an office, are free-standing, mini-hotel rooms (but without bathrooms) designed for busy parts of airports and train stations. Travelers can reserve them in advance or rent them at the door by the hour.

So far there are 11 Ziosks in operation--eight in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, two that opened this month in Chicago's Union Station, and one in the Canada's Thunder Bay Airport.

Ziosks are the brainstorm of Jeff and Joan Fortune, hoteliers who decided to bring the room to the traveler rather than wait for the traveler to come to the room. The Fortunes, who own several hotels in Florida, say they thought it up in 1967 but the technology that made it possible to operate such rooms from remote locations wasn't available until recently. Ziosk was incorporated in 1990, and the first Ziosks were placed in operation in 1992.

The existing Ziosks have found their niche mostly with business travelers, although some families also use them, said Howard Braukman, director of product development for Ziosk. Company surveys show about 75% of the users are business travelers. So far about 12,600 people have either rented the units or obtained a personal identification number that allows them to easily check in.

Mike Sagara, division sales manager for United Family Life Insurance Co. in Atlanta, is one fan. Sagara spends all week on the road, frequently passing through the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

"It's a real comfortable place to gather myself at the end of the work week and catch up on details," he said. "It's a quiet place to make phone calls, check my e-mail and voice messages, and call customers. That way the time at the airport is not just downtime."

Airline clubs offer many similar services, but they don't offer privacy, he said. "They tend to get a little noisy and can be a little distracting."

The rooms have attracted a lot of interest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, said Gordon Wennerstrom, airport property manager. "These little boxes have generated more telephone calls for me than just about anything else we've done in the last 10 to 15 years," he said. "We view them as a customer service. There are customers who don't belong to airline clubs who need something like this."

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