A huge new trend in hospitality is the availability of daytime hotels, most likely inspired by consumer behaviour within the sharing economy. People don’t want to be gauged financially for things like hotel rooms anymore, especially now that the way we want to use hotel rooms has changed so drastically.
Daytime hotels are disrupting the motel market, which comes packaged with a seedy reputation for drugs and promiscuous sex. Short hotel stays are brilliant, on the other hand. They’re comfortable oasis in the middle of chaos, and we’re so excited to book a break during our next exhausting and overwhelming trip to New York City.
Some context for how I learned about daytime hotels: last year, I took my own advice and booked a business meeting on a fun trip to Paris. I had coffee with a woman who was working on a campaign for Day Use hotels, a brand of hotels for people to rent for a few hours a day rather than overnight. Day Use hotels are in Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Dubai and Berlin. My new friend and I spoke about how I would write about Day Use as a journalist and how she could market the brand.
I told her the benefit of Day Use was clear: in all the cities where they have hotels, tourism and sheer population size make respite from the crowds extremely desirable. As a writer, the excitement of working from a coffee shop loses its lustre after about a week. Community work spaces are a huge step up from coffee shops but they get busy too, and the shared wi-fi can be an issue. Hotel rooms by day, on the other hand, can be used for peace & quiet, meetings, a quite work space, a mid-day shower, makeup refresh, sex, PR events or somewhere to leave your bags while you run around the city.
Recharge is two-year-old San Francisco-based company that gives users the chance to book a hotel room for exactly the amount of time they need it. It also launched in New York this week with 16 partners: The Pierre, W New York, The Knickerbocker, 1 Hotel Central Park, Arlo, and the Quin. The price for a stay ranges from $0.83 to $2 per minute (excluding the 14.75% lodging tax), meaning a minimum of $1 per minute.
Here’s how it works:
With Recharge, there is no minimum length of stay, though the company says the average stay is about 2 hours. You cannot book rooms in advance but instead select a room available close to you when you need it, and your billing cycle starts 30 minutes after you book or once you pick up your key. Dayuse also work in the short-term room-rental market but they focus on less-expensive hotels and only allow users to book predetermined morning or afternoon slots.