TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring France-based DayUse-Hotels, a service for hotels selling rooms for limited hours during the day.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds) ?
Dayuse-Hotels is an online hotel booking service that offers rooms for a few hours during the day. The company has existed since December 2010, created by David Lebée and Thibaud D’Agrèves (both 30 years old).
We operate in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and now in London.
Lebée has always worked in the hostelry. He met Emmanuel Delavenne (partner and owner of Hotel Amour) and Xavier Bentes (founder of MyBoutiqueHotel) who helped him to start this adventure.
Lebée and D’Agrèves are long time friends, and they naturally came to work together for Dayuse. Full line-up:
- Lebée: Co-founder and director
- D’Agrèves: co-founder
- Eugénie Lebée: co-founder and artistic director
- Benjamin Sitbon: informatics director and accountant
- Alexandre Spizzichino: sales manager
What financial support did you have to launch the business ?We didn’t have a big budget to launch DayUse-Hotels, but we needed a technical support which Xavier Bentes gave with his website’s technology.
What problem are you trying to solve ?
We observed at Hotel Amour that a lot of people called to ask if it’s possible to rent a room in the afternoon for a few hours.
The concept of love hotel in Japan and Brazil existed since several years. The internet is a perfect channel to launch a booking service which requires discretion.
A day-use property can be used for many reasons - a need to love, to have some rest or to work.
In France, the day-use used to be known as a "five to seven". It described all the forbidden loves in the afternoon.
We hope that we’ll give a new name to this practice.
Describe the business, core products and services ?
Our activity is to rent hotel rooms during the day. A day-use is 30 to 70% cheaper than a room for a night.
We have selected only boutique hotels. Their design and spirit is better for a day-use than a world famous brand.
Who are your key customers and users at launch ?
Our key customers are between 30 and 60 years old who generally have a good and high-responsibility jobs, and can take some time during the day to come at a hotel. They mainly live in large cities.
We launched DayUse initially in Paris. Following its success, we have secured partners all across France.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
We didn’t really ask to people if it was a good idea or not. We observed the success of the concept of day-use at the Hotel Amour.
It was obvious that people just needed to know that it was possible to book a room online for a day. They’re afraid to call a regular hotel to check availability for the day.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability ?
We have deals with hotels. They gave us a percentage of the room’s price.
SWOT analysis - strenght, weakness, strategy for profitability ?
Strengths:
- Great hotel network, good prices negotiation for customers
Weaknesses:
- Lack of money for communication at an international level.
Opportunities:
- Enter more international markets during the next two years (US, elsewhere in Europe, Asia).
Threats:
- As every new successful concept, a lot of competitors will appear. We need to have the best prices, the biggest network and great communication.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be succesful and why didn't you listen to them ?A lot of people were suspicious when David and Thibaud talked about the concept. But those people didn’t work in the hotel industry and couldn’t realize the potential of Dayuse.
For them, it was just a little and closed market.
But we knew that we could offer a solution for thousands people. When you start a new business, something strange happens. You believe that you can reach every goal you attempt.
And it has happened. Today, DayUse-Hotels is a success in France, especially in Paris.
We know that it will work in London, then in New York and every other big European city.
What is your success metric 12 from now ?
For 2012, we hope that DayUse will be a success in London and New York. Then we’ll try to reach other European cities such as Manchester, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome and Amsterdam.
The team will grow (we are only eight today). Over time, we’ll be able to propose a night offer similar to Booking.com.
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.