The reinvention of hotels: offices for teleworking and coworking

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a decrease in tourism and hotel occupancy. Faced with this scenario, some hotels have chosen to reconvert and allocate the rooms to new clients and new uses, such as offices for teleworking or spaces for meetings and coworking.

Hotels with rooms that now are offices

The decrease in leisure tourism due to the Covid-19 pandemic is a fact, as well as the reduction in MICE tourism (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions or Events).

As a consequence, hotels have seen their occupancy levels decrease, a fact that has motivated some of them to reinvent themselves and offer new services for a new type of guest.

This is the case, for example, of the experience called Workation launched by Meliá Hotels International that allows teleworking from its hotels while the guest can enjoy the hotel’s complimentary offer. A new option for a day stay that has already been implemented in several hotels of the company in Europe and the United States.

The initiative to allocate hotel spaces for teleworking or meetings is expanding in different brands and hotel chains, which see it as a new business segment and an alternative option to alleviate the negative effects derived from Covid-19.

Attract a new customer profile

It is about looking for and attracting a new client profile, more local, who needs a quiet workspace to be able to concentrate and telework, away from home. This is indicated by Lourdes Grau, director of Gallery Hotel Barcelona in a report by the CCMA.

“Given the lack of travelers, we have transformed our rooms into offices”; and have adapted common areas of the hotel to turn them into offices for coworking or meetings that can be rented for hours, weeks, or months.

Alternatives for a scenario on hold, until tourism reactivates and reaches similar levels to those before Covid-19.