As of 2015, many properties started renting hotel rooms effectively by-the-hour, instead by the day. New startup Beewake believes it can leverage this opportunity. It lets travelers book daytime space at hotels to use as meeting rooms, office space for single-day us, and a place to nap.
Beewake is a mobile service that allows you to instantly book daytime space wherever you are, whenever you need it.
Founded earlier in spring 2016 with a reported $160,000 in capital, it has since partnered with about 150 properties in the Americas and Europe, with property types varying from 2 to 5 stars.
Here's a one-minute video pitch from president Jeremie Catez:
A brief Q&A with Catez:
What problem does your business solve?
By decoupling time and space in the Hospitality industry, Beewake gives value to vacant spaces.
The deep low-cost trend and the erosion of average occupancy rate in the hotel industry is due to several well-known factors: e-distribution, growing dependence to OTAs, decrease of business travel, and fragmentation of the accommodation supply because of the rise of alternative models like Airbnb...
To remain competitive, hoteliers have to go back to basics. Indeed the job of an hotelier is to welcome a guest when they need space and when the hoteliers have accommodations available, bet it by night or by day.
The idea of Beewake came from my experience as a director of revenue management and e-commerce at Accor US, where I saw first-hand that hotels only focused on night stays, potentially missing out on opportunities and not fully optimizing their property at all hours of the day.
What I can tell you is that every year in the U.S., about millions of people are looking for spaces to work, meet, play or relax but they often fail to find an easily available space near them.
Beewake allows local customers and co-workers to find daytime spaces when they need it to work or rest. It also comes at the rescue of business travelers and tourists when their flight or train has been cancelled or delayed.
Based on our own data gathering, we believe that most guest rooms are occupied on average 15 hours out of 24 hours.
At Beewake, our purpose is to streamline and standardize the offer of daytime spaces and meet the demand of increasingly busy and mobile customers who can find a space near them, in an instant.
Beewake is targeting business travelers or freelancers who are working remotely and don't have spaces to meet with potential business partners when they are on the go or prospecting.
For hotels, Beewake appears to be a 100% incremental revenue tool which is marketing their
underutilized sleeping and meeting rooms.
Names of founders and details on the team?
Beewake, a U.S company, was formed in 2015 by a team of 3 full-time paid staff: the co-founders are Jeremie Catez (Yield, Travel & Hospitality Industry / E-commerce), Sebastien Trouillet (Business Development, Brand & Online Advertising) and Gabriel Munch Andersen (IT Development & Product), respectively President, CEO and founding CTO.
The team also benefits from the support of technical, legal and marketing experts.
The number of full-time staf will increase shortly, in line with our expansion plan.
Funding arrangements?
So far, we have raised capital through friends and family as well as business angels; we are now are looking to raise money to speed up our growth, improve product development and quickly scale our operations worldwide.
Revenue model?
As a marketplace, we operate on a commission model, receiving a percentage on each booking
made through the accommodation providers; we do not charge any fees to the traveler/app users.
Why do you think the pain point you’re solving is painful enough that customers are willing to pay for your solution?
In the last couple of years, I started noticing that the industry is moving towards a low-cost business model, because of the success of some disruptive market players such as Airbnb as well as the importance of the OTA resulting into a decreasing RevPAR.
Beewake is free to use for our customers, so the space providers are willing to pay a commission to tap in this huge unexploited supply of services: 2.2 billion rooms remain unsold ever year. Every unsold room is a missed opportunity.
Hoteliers need to act urgently to remain key players of the hospitality industry. If they don't sell their spaces during the day, someone will do it. Space management professionals need to act now to become pioneers in daytime space offering, and Beewake is the right tool to assist them in this new quest.
External validation?
Beewake is fortunate enough to benefit from the advice of several outstanding experts, from the travel industry to the e-commerce world.
This summer, we were selected at the HITEC 2016 E20X, a competition which rewards the most
innovative start-ups in the hospitality technology industry.
Finally, I can say that I have seen a growing demand for unsold daytimes spaces in hotels during my time as manager at Accor US.
Tnooz view:
Renting hotel rooms by the hour used to be déclassé. But, as Catez outlines above, there's a growing demand for legitimate partial rentals of hotel rooms, such as for meeting rooms.
Beewake is not alone in the space. French rival DayUse.com has recently expanded to the U.S., and over five years worldwide has provided hotels with more than $20 million in revenue. HotelsByDay and ByHours are other competitors.
In Beewake's favor is that its extranet is relatively slick. A hotel manager can define what kind of inventory he or she wants to offer and then set daily rates and time slots. A manager can also use the tool to cope with bookings the moment they come in.