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Written by Miami Today on March 11, 2026
A county contract napping since it was approved in June 2024 is due to awaken this week in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Miami International Airport as the first of two airport sleep centers opens.
The 15 rooms inside the Wait n’ Rest facility can bed down one to four guests using one or two beds. The rooms feature in-room touch screen TV monitors and access to private showers, fresh towels and snacks at hourly rates for up to eight hours.
With the opening, the airport is awakening to a global trend of sleep centers to serve waiting passengers who aren’t looking for the full overnight amenities of the airport’s internal hotel. The sleep center deal could bring in $10 million over 10 years from two centers. The second is to open this summer.
Miami International Airport is late to wake up to the popularity of sleep centers. Airports around the world offer such amenities. But like pajamas, one size doesn’t fit all: some airports have tiny sleep pods at low rates, others offer mini-rooms with a bed, desk and chair. Some charge extra for a wake-up shower. Costs range across the board, and the Miami International deal gives the Boynton Beach-based operator owned by CEO Duilio Sanguineti broad leeway to set its own fees and list of services.
In June 2024, the airport, along with Miami-Dade County, entered an agreement with Wait n’ Rest, a sleep center company that runs similar sites at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, Colombia, and Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru.
This new center is to be the company’s third and newest center, as well as its first in the United States.
Construction began last summer on the first MIA sleep center, set to open at Gate D15 at Concourse D of the north terminal.
The second sleep center in Concourse H in the south terminal is to be notably smaller than the first, Mr. Sanguineti said, containing only eight rooms, with a maximum of 25 occupants at any time.
Wait n’ Rest will be charging per hour per person, offering package deals ranging from $40 to $60 on average, in order to give passengers flexibility in their accommodations while they rest and wait for their flight in comfort, he said last year.
An airport representative said last year that construction will be funded by Wait n’ Rest’s own revenue, with the county collecting 25% of the centers’ gross revenues.
According to Mr. Sanguineti, who founded the company in 2020, Wait n’ Rest is meant to give travelers competitive options to enjoy a restful, high-end experience.
“Our whole vision for the service is to make airports feel first-class,” he said last year. “We see that you have a variety of VIP lounges in airports around the USA … you have all the categories that you can think of, and I do think that sleeping is a core need. I think it was about time that a service came to fulfill that need.”
Weather or mechanical delays at the airport could build sleep centers’ take and the airport’s share.