HOW TO DEVELOP THE " LOVE HOTELS " CONCEPT
"The entrepreneur voice " | 15/06/12 | Published on the wedsite theentrepreneurvoice.com
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Entrepreneurs: Thibaud D’Agrèves & David Lebée in Paris, Yannis Moati in New York
Cities: Paris, New York
Launch date: November 2010
Challenge of the Day: « Further to a fast growth in Paris, how to develop the concept “Love Hotels” in major international cities? »
For our first interview in Paris Theentrepreneurvoice.com is heading to the first district in Paris, to meet with Thibaud and David, two of the five founders of a trendy new concept you certainly have heard of during the last few months: dayuse-hotels.com.
Dayuse-hotels.com is the first platform that offers an online reservation service to rent a room in luxury hotels during the day at a reduced price. “Our Internet generation”, said Yannis, “expects more flexibility everywhere and hotels booking services are not escaping this trend.”
What is Day Use Hotels and how does it work?
Adaptation of a concept to the European style
“In 2010”, David said, “I was manager at Hotel Amour, a leading hotel in Paris. During the week, I had customers “a little embarrassed” renting a room for a night at a high price, and using it during an afternoon only.”
Precisely at that time, Thibaud was coming back from a year in Brazil, where he discovered the popularity of “Love Hotels“.
After watching said love hotels conquering Japan, Thailand, Korea and Brazil, David and Thibaud decided to adapt the concept and give it its European touch by creating: www.dayuse-hotels.com
Launched in November 2010, the Day Use Hotels website already rents out rooms in around 250 hotels across the United States, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Ireland. This is small fry compared to the mature markets in Asia, where approximately 25,000 to 50,000 hotels in Japan, and more than 30,000 in Seoul, operate as by-the-hour love hotels.
- The market: Business – Travel – Leisure
Facing increasing demands for room rentals by the day, Thibaud and David decided to provide the same services initially reserved to customers for a night, but during the day and at a cheaper rate, i.e. between 30% and 70% of thenightly price! This very popular concept is not addressed only to men and women eager to spice up their marriage or looking for extra marital adventures, as you might think. Their customers profiles are diverse: “we have 10% to 20% of businessmen, 40% of faithful couples and 40% of infidels” according to Thibaud. They include transfer passengers, white-collar working girls, artists overworked as well as lovers in search of romance.
- Quality service & discretion
The booking site www.dayuse-hotels.com is committed to provide, in the utmost discretion, quality service coupled with strict confidentiality because the reservation does not require personal information such as credit card number. A text message is sent to the customer, who must confirm the reservation to get a number assigned. This will allow customers to recover their key at the reception. Payment is made directly to the hotel as well. The rates are between €45 and €200 for a double room in “high-end, boutique, charming three-star, superior four- and five-star hotels.
- Selected boutique hotels
The boutique hotels are carefully selected among charming establishments that meet criteria of quality and privacy. With its success, Dayuse-hotel.com is currently available in many French cities, is gradually extending to other international cities.
Dayuse-hotel.com today
Starting with an initial capital of Euros 4,000, Day Use Hotels was able to create and launch its website.
Today the website attracts 30,000 visitors every month and manages between 1,500 and 2,000 reservations per month. Ten people work for Day Use Hotels and the start-up makes around Euros 25,000 to 30,000 of profit per months at the moment!
Dayuse-hotel.com bases its success on a good knowledge of the market, and on its communication to the public by the press, eager to report the existence of its catchy, fun and trendy system for booking discounted hotel rooms in some of the most luxurious hotels in Paris.
After Paris, how to extend on the market in others international cities?
With its partnership with Gleeden http://en.gleeden.com/, the first extramarital dating site made by women, « 50 % of the dayushotels target’s represent 100 % of the gleeden’s targets ! ».
They are starting to raise funds, between 400 000 and 500 000 euros, this will allow them to develop the company especially in Europe and U.S.
Launch of Dayuse-hotel.com in New York
New York, as a cosmopolitan city, has currently a similar demand for room rentals in hotels during the day. Executive people, travelers, etc. are in need of such flexibility. According to Yannis, “Dayuse-hotels.com is here to serve this market demand, being the worldwide leader with more than 100 bookings per day and more than 30,000 visitors per months to our website; we are the unique channel to book such day rooms in hotels.”
“Because of its success”, said Yannis, “it is true that we are also facing some challenges. Similarly to the starting of our operations in Paris and London, some Hotel managers can be a bit reluctent to test our system. They fully realize our potential in increasing their profits by selling their idle rooms, but some are quiet conservative in managing their brand and pricing. Many are waiting for broader press coverage of our concept before presenting it to their top management. Thus, we know that we have a lot of potential supply in the pipeline.
In the first few months after adding a new hotel partner to our network, one of our main task is a very close follow-up of every single booking we get, so that the logistic of welcoming our clients goes very smooth. The fact that our company was founded by 2 former Hotel managers is essential in understanding the needs of our Hotel partners.
In the last 20 days of our soft launch in NYC, we are very pleased to report that the system is operating very smoothly, bringing in a highly vetted crowd of young managers and executives, satisfying their needs of quality and high-end services, as well as satisfying the Hotel needs in welcoming a respectful & legitimate client category.
Going so well in our market implementation, we now enlarged our goal of opening 40 hotels regionally in the next 6 months, as well as introducing dayuse-hotels.com to the West Coast.