Summary: Work-from-hotel an emerging business model that might remake the hospitality industry during and after the coronavirus pandemic, say experts<br> ast week, Arne Sorenson, president and CEO at Marriott International <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dusting-off-welcome-mat-office-arne-sorenson/">posted a blog</a> on LinkedIn about the value of hospitality professionals returning to the office to work.<br> Like many businesses across the country, employees stationed at Marriott’s corporate headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, pre-pandemic have worked from home for the past six months.<br> Marriott had about 4,000 employees at its corporate headquarters in the beginning of the year. It laid off two thirds of its corporate staff in March as the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a grinding halt. The company has begun to call employees back to work at its headquarters while extending furloughs for others and announcing permanent job cuts for 700 employees effective this month.<br> In his blog, Sorenson laid out a plan that has employees easing back into working from their offices.<br> “While remote work will be a bigger part of our future than any of us anticipated in the past, it is increasingly clear that getting back to the office, sensibly, flexibly and in phases, is the appropriate next step,” Sorenson writes.<br> Those commenting on Sorenson’s blog include <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannismoati/">Yannis Moati</a>, founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.hotelsbyday.com/en">HotelsbyDay</a>, an online booking platform that offers hotel rooms for day use.<br> Moati disagrees with Sorenson’s assessment of the necessity of returning to the office, noting remote working can benefit hotels struggling to fill their rooms. “Our industry is hurting, with more vacancy than ever before,” he writes, noting the large geographical footprint of hotels. “This is the one time (sic) opportunity to re-evaluate what our industry’s mission is.”<br> Open for New Business<br> Moati is a former travel agent who lives in New York City. <a href="https://www.hotelsbyday.com/en">HotelsbyDay.com</a> allows users to book rooms for day use via its mobile app. Since its start in 2015, more than 1,500 hotels around the world have signed up as participants. Moati was seeing a continuous increase in the program’s use before the pandemic hit.<br> Pre-pandemic, Moati said, more than half of HotelsbyDay customers were leisure guests; 30 percent were people who were on layover at airports; and another 10 percent booked for business use.<br> Almost all the layover business is gone, he said. HotelsbyDay’s business was down 82 percent in April. In September it was down by 26 percent compared to pre-pandemic traffic. “So we are climbing ourselves back up from that hole.”<br> A big part of the bounce back, Moati said, is the business sector. With an estimated 40 million people working from home, HotelsbyDay has seen a 35 percent increase in “work-from-hotel” bookings.<br> The day-use guest demographic, he said, is “hyper local,” with more than 60 percent coming from less than 25 miles away.<br> The trend is “suddenly opening the door of that hotel to a much larger audience than ever before,” Moati said.<br> READ: ‘OFFICES ARE DEAD’: Yannis Moati, founder and CEO of HotelsbyDay, espouses the business benefits of the work-from-hotel concept in this <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-could-save-the-hotel-industry-amid-the-pandemic-a-hub-for-work-and-play-2020-08-25">opinion piece</a> he penned for MarketWatch. Hotel owners and operators will reorganize their business models to accommodate the emerging demand, he writes.<br> Hotel Companies Respond<br> Recognizing the boost that day use can have to a hotel’s bottom line, hotel companies such as Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Hilton have rolled out remote-work promotions. Hilton’s <a href="https://www.workspacesbyhilton.com/?"></a>
