Remote work has kickstarted a hotel subscription-living movement

By Jessica Davies

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The American poet and activist Maya Angelou famously kept a hotel room in every town she ever lived. She would pay for the room on a monthly basis, usually sticking with the same hotel for a few months at a time. In 2021, this idea is being resurrected — not just for writers, but for creatives of all kinds.

The devastated hospitality industry has been forced to do some lateral thinking in response to the challenges of Covid-19. Tourism isn’t projected to return to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024, while hotel occupancy rates are expected to remain 30% below normal levels throughout 2021.

So, instead of marketing overnight stays, hotels are switching their focus to flexible monthly subscriptions, often at a much lower price point. The past decade saw the rise of subscription giants like Netflix, Spotify and HelloFresh. If we’re already buying into this model for movies, music, and meals, why not add accommodation to the mix?

Micro-apartment hotel Zoku Amsterdam opened in 2015 and was designed specifically for remote workers and digital nomads. It fits space-saving ‘loft’ apartments into the plots of standard hotel rooms, has a coworking space instead of a lobby, and employs a permanent community manager whose job is to facilitate introductions between locals and visitors.

Before 2020, Zoku was a hotel with a quirky concept and award-winning design. Its guests mainly consisted of business travelers and corporate relocations. But the pandemic has put it at the center of the emerging work-from-anywhere movement. As a result, it’s expanding to new locations in Copenhagen and Vienna in 2021 – and going all-in on a subscription business model.

“The vision is that remote workers will spend time with us in different cities every year,” said Veerle Donders, brand and concept director at Zoku. “Long-term, we anticipate that the creative audiences we serve will choose to pay an annual subscription to be part of the global Zoku community.”

The price points of these hotel subscription schemes vary. Zoku’s initial offering costs €2,750 for 30 days, with discounts for bookings of multiple months. In the budget space, trendy hostel brand Selina recently launched a co-living subscription for stays across South and Central America, starting at just $300 per month.

At both price points, what appeals is not just staying and working from somewhere new and exciting, but the convenient package of accommodation, workspace and community in one place.

Konstantinos Ntoukakis is co-founder of the SEO consultancy Studio for Digital Growth. He has lived as a digital nomad on and off since 2015 and stayed long-term in hotels even before 2020.

“I enjoy hotels as international spaces and because of the on-site amenities like the concierge, bars and restaurants,” he said. “When you’re traveling and working at the same time, you want to know that things are …read more

Source:: Digiday