CAP Worldwide Director Jo Layton contributed to an article in Skift covering the concept of using hotel suites as home offices by globally mobile employees and remote workers. Here she expands on the article.
Global Mobility - Working remotely from ‘anywhere’
Companies will be very aware that they have advised their staff that they do not need to return to their contracted ‘place of work’ until, in some cases, the first quarter of 2021. The HR impact of this decision for some companies, supported by relocation management companies, is yet to be realised, as repatriated workforces that have returned to their ‘home’ country during lockdown, but who are continuing to work for their host organisation from their home country, may bring some tax and/or immigration issues to their companies front door.
The key question is, does the employee have the ‘right to work’ for their employer in their (the employee’s) home country. i.e. does the company have a legal entity in the location and if not, is there a tax liability for the employer and is the employer potentially forming a business in an employee’s home country ‘by default’.
One to watch as we come through this pandemic.
Attracting a new audience
Hotels are suffering from reduced corporate and conference business and are having to re-imagine how they can monetise their space, their rooms and their staff.
With the continued pause on global corporate, international leisure, local, regional and global conferences, incentive travel and weekend leisure groups, large hotels in key cities with 500+ keys now need to find solutions that will encourage their current guests to stay ‘a little longer’ than 2/3 nights.
We are all aware that the on-spend in a hotel is critical to the outlets, and any extended length of stay opportunity, even at a reduced room rate, encourages potential additional spend within the hotel’s F&B outlets.
A year ago, this would have been identified as a ‘bleisure’ stay. In 2020, during the pandemic, there is a change of emphasis to attract a new target audience that are employed, but are able to take advantage of a flexible working framework.
Co-living, co-working and hotel offices
Co-living spaces have been created to attract the new workforces that initially wanted to part of a community, with shared environments and sometimes a slightly more ‘compact’ living space.
The additional solution now of the ‘hotel office’, basically using the hotel room as a day-let, could reduce the demand of desks in serviced offices – this could also impact on the coffee shops that used to have many individual workers frequenting their establishments during working hours.
A day-let versus a serviced desk does provide flexibility and less commitment along with privacy for the worker, and again, potentially an additional on-spend in the hotel’s room service and F&B outlets.
Hotels: adapting to a new demand
Many hotels will now be considering blending/converting some of their floors into accommodation solutions for extended stay travellers by creating one or two bed apartments - two hotel rooms can make a very adequate one bed apartment - with the main requirement for the hotelier to remove a bathroom and create a kitchen in its space.
This is not a new concept, and of course, requires a lot of consideration, consultation and advice from experts, certainly around the change of use, but definitely this could be a potential solution that I believe is on the agenda of many hoteliers/owners/investors and board teams currently who are trying to understand and react effectively to the impact of the pandemic on their next 5 years of trading.
This change of use would not be an overly high or intensive activity after seeking advice, and may create an opportunity for the hotel chains to extend their reach into the extended stay market, if, as suggested by feedback from corporate travel teams, the length of stay of the short term business travel trip increases to over a week as global borders slowly re-open.
Follow the link below to the full article on Skift:
Skift - The New Corporate Travel?
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