By Michał Laszuk
Anyone who has ever worked remotely must have quickly realized it often doesn’t matter where you work. You might as well go on vacation and connect from a sandy beach or a charming patio overlooking landscapes you’ve never seen before. What’s more, remote workers know by now that one of the disadvantages of doing your job at home is that you might need a change of scenery at some point, if only to introduce something new to your life and avoid monotony.
That is precisely why working from hotels has become a big trend lately, as plenty of remote workers choose to spice up their professional lives and get out of their flats and houses they start to associate with mostly work. Thanks to a study conducted by Passport Photo Online, we can take a closer look at how the trend of work from hotels has developed and how popular it has become.
Remote workers & hotels–a perfect duo?
Staying at home all the time can be draining, but one might argue that booking a guest room at a hotel to use it as your working space is a bit of a waste. It’s a perfectly fair argument.
What’s interesting, however, is that, according to the study, booking a room with the sole purpose of working there is more popular than one might have initially thought. The numbers behind the study certainly paint the picture of a luxury that many gladly pay for.
- 34% book hotel rooms once or twice a month for work;
- As much as 31% do the same 3-4 times a month;
- 19% regularly (5 times a month or more) book rooms for work;
- 14% do it less than once a month;
- and just 2% never book a hotel room for work.
It’s especially odd, one might think, that just a tiny portion of surveyed Americans never decided to take advantage of modern hotel rooms that are beginning to turn into perfect working environments.
The stats, however, also include international travelers, such as businessmen crossing the ocean to strike up new deals and digital nomads, who take mixing work and travel to the extreme. If we take them into consideration, suddenly, the numbers don’t seem so surprising.
After all, plenty of us travel for work and are almost constantly on the move, which explains little difference between the number of remote workers picking domestic (49%) and international (47%) destinations.
How should you book a room to work from hotels?
There are plenty of ways to arrange a stay at a hotel for work, and sometimes even employers take care of that themselves. That’s one way of securing a change of scenery, but it’s not the most popular one.
Most remote workers (23%) prefer a direct approach and book rooms on the hotel website or call it themselves. It’s arguably the easiest way to set everything up quickly and effectively so that you arrive to find exactly what you need to be at your best while you work.
Online travel agencies also offer to take care of everything for you and provide you with an ideal working environment suited to meet all of your requirements. It’s another popular way to handle booking a hotel room for work practiced by roughly 1 in 5 Americans.
If you’re looking to book a room like that yourself, you also ought to remember that travel portals and agents can take care of everything for you as well. Hence, you’re left with plenty of options to book an ideal hotel room.
How long do we usually stay working from hotels?
As you might have already guessed, remote work from a hotel isn’t a lengthy affair in most cases, as it might turn out to be too expensive to book longer stays.
- 35% of pollsters book multi-day stays (2-6 days);
- 22% opt for even longer stays (a week+);
- 20% pick a single-day package;
- 19% settle for overnight stays.
The results, then, show us that, in most cases, just one day in a new environment is often not enough to get a rest from spending your whole days at home. When you think about it and about the offers you might find in various hotels, it’s no surprise. Most of them offer modern rooms equipped with office supplies, noise-canceling doors, free Wi-Fi access, and
flat-screen TVs, so most of your needs are taken care of.
Why choose to work from a hotel?
Now that we’ve covered what such a stay at a hotel looks like, it’s worth mentioning that reasons for people to try WFH are more plentiful than some might think.
By far, the most important reason why remote workers decide to book a hotel room is to meet colleagues or clients in a professional and neutral setting. It certainly makes sense considering how some of the higher-rated hotels can even offer you a conference room to hold important meetings. Moreover, the argument of neutrality of an environment surely plays a role as it puts everyone involved in those talks on the same level, as opposed to a situation where one party meets the other in their company building.
Secondly, there’s what we’ve talked about previously – a change in scenery. It gets dull working in one place every day, and it can be almost therapeutic to break that monotony once in a while. A day or two in a different environment can make all the difference, especially when your work-life balance suffers, and you find yourself thinking constantly about work when at home. You might even look at it as potential burnout prevention – an issue that’s all too common nowadays.
Another reason why working from a hotel might be a good idea is the ability to take advantage of all the hotel amenities and facilities that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to. It can be anything, from modern printers and professional working tools to pools and massage rooms that provide you with a bit of relaxation after a long day at work.
Lastly, other reasons to work at a hotel are, strictly speaking, very simple:
- the ability to combine work and leisure;
- seeing and experiencing a different city;
- minimalizing all distractions you’d otherwise have to deal with;
- earning hotel points;
- taking advantage of a better workplace, more suited to your needs.
The benefits of working from hotels
A very interesting insight from the study is that picking a new, temporary workplace can have plenty of positive effects on us, and it’s not only about experiencing a different environment. According to American professionals polled in the study, the greatest benefit is the heightened productivity level when working from hotel rooms.
A whopping 61% of them admitted to greater productivity when working in a private room, while only 18% saw little to no difference as opposed to their regular productivity at home.
Moreover, the same goes for creativity while at work. Exactly 60% claim that working from a hotel improved their creativity levels, and only 17% felt exactly the opposite.
Top 5 other benefits
As we said in previous sections, working in a private room in a luxury hotel comes with plenty of benefits you otherwise might not experience while at home. Apart from the benefits of a more psychological nature, WFH also provides guests with some of the most crucial hotel features. The most important of them include:
- dependable IT support;
- peace and quiet;
- easy access to food and beverages;
- fast and stable internet connection;
- good lighting.
The future of WFH (Work from Hotels)
If we look at all the advantages of working from a hotel, it comes as little surprise that a vast majority of Americans’ impressions (89%) are either good or very positive. In fact, you might even argue that the ability to work from a hotel at least a few times per year might become a very attractive benefit in the future. The numbers certainly back up that idea, with so many remote workers singing WFH’s praises.
It’s surely something to consider for both employers and employees if we take into consideration how more than 7 out of 10 Americans plan to book a hotel room for work in 2023 and beyond.
To sum up work from hotels in 2023
While the abbreviation WFH used to mean “work from home,” now it also refers to this new trend of booking a hotel room for work, and the trend is catching on like wildfire. Thanks to plenty of benefits, like improved productivity, creativity, or access to professional workspaces, many Americans are rather enthusiastic about the idea of a temporary change
of scenery. What we’re seeing and will likely see in the near future is a further evolution of remote work, and hotels are ready for it.
About the Author: Michał Laszuk is a content writer and SEO Outreach Specialist at PhotoAiD. You can learn more about him and his work on his LinkedIn profile. You can also learn more about PhotoAiD, an at-home ID photo tool for passports, visas, ID cards, and more, at photoaid.com.
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