New platform helps hoteliers offer beds for coronavirus-related needs

Hotel technology company Cloudbeds has created an online portal to connect hotels with health care providers and local governments.

“HospitalityHelps” is the name of the initiative to enable hotels to offer their properties for use as field hospitals, for healthcare works that need a place to stay, for family members of patients and for other virus-related needs.

“With each passing hour, we face an ever more acute shortage of available beds for the sick and for health professionals who are fighting coronavirus. At the same time, we are seeing many lodging providers reducing occupancy or sitting empty altogether,” says Adam Harris, CEO at Cloudbeds. 

“The hotel industry has always been about people first and foremost. #Hospitalityhelps is connecting our hotel customers and industry partners with government and healthcare agencies to help people who need it most - by making more beds available.”

Hoteliers can fill out a form online to make their properties available. Government and healthcare agencies can email [email protected] to share their needs.

“This is a time when all of us must take action to do what we can to avoid reaching an unprecedented breaking point in our health care system. It doesn’t make sense that patients in need of beds should be without them, when there are hundreds of beds available around the corner,” says Richard Castle, president and COO at Cloudbeds.

“We have a team of people working around the clock to help alleviate the strain by mobilizing the hospitality community. As communities continue to act urgently to prepare, we hope that leaders in hospitality and other industries will step forward to support them."

According to the site’s FAQ, determination of whether hotels will be paid for providing housing will be done on a case-by-case basis by the parties involved.

On March 11 Cloudbeds received $82 million in funding to further develop its hospitality management technology platform.