As remote work continues to reshape how and where we do our work, one opportunity is hiding in plain sight: hotels.
The Quiet Rise of Informal Coworking in Hotels
Walk into any hotel lobby today, and you’ll likely see someone typing away on a laptop, holding a Zoom call, or reviewing documents over a coffee. In this sense, hotels have already become informal coworking spaces. However, most hotels haven’t embraced the potential to turn this into a structured, revenue-generating offering. Guests often spend hours working for the price of a single coffee, not because they are unwilling to pay more, but because there is little offered beyond that. In other words, the demand is there, but many hotels have not provided sufficient options.
Hotels Already Have What Remote Workers Need
Hotels are uniquely positioned to serve remote workers. They already offer quiet rooms, fast Wi-Fi, printers, meeting spaces, and cafés. And much of this infrastructure sits unused during daytime hours, especially in business traveler-oriented hotels where check-in often happens later in the evening. Hotels can adjust their offerings based on what they have available, such as rooms for solo work, desks for quick tasks, or meeting spaces for teams. Nowadays, companies are struggling to bring employees back to the office. The convenience of working in a hotel room as your office desk could make more employees want to come to the “office” more.
Rent is one of the main reasons coworking spaces struggle — they can’t offer low prices without losing money. Hotels, however, already cover their overhead through their main business. That means they can offer workspaces at minimal extra cost, turning unused rooms and spaces into a flexible, low-effort revenue stream.
Making Hotel Workspaces Easy to Reserve
One key challenge is logistics. Most hotel booking systems are designed for overnight stays and not for guests who would need to use the hotel rooms as workplaces. As a result, guests often end up paying for more than they need, or finding there’s no way to reserve specific services at all. It’s still a clunky, inconvenient process — both for guests and staff.
A modern booking system could fix this. By allowing guests to reserve exactly what they need — a room as an office desk, a meeting room, or other resources for the time they need it, hotels could offer a seamless experience. This could reduce staff workload, improve convenience, and likely attract more remote workers.
Hotel coworking is already happening. The next step is to make it more convenient and turn it into an optimized business opportunity.Â
Interested in implementing DeskMe at your hotel? Please, contact us!
