Work from home, away from home
Hyatt Regency Greenwich offers special daily rentals
GREENWICH — Tropical Storm Isaias ravaged Connecticut in the summer, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes throughout the state.
It left residents without electricity and WiFi for days and weeks. And for many, especially those who had made the transition to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, it created a thorny logistical issue. During the pandemic, it was potentially dangerous to flock to coffee houses, libraries and other public spaces to work. So a large number of Connecticut residents found themselves in the dark and unable to work.
It was at this time that Sherry Hicks-Buckles, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Greenwich, and her colleagues thought up a creative solution, not just to the problems caused by the storm, but to the tourism industry’s own COVID-related woes.
The East Putnam Avenue hotel began to rethink its business mod
el and offer deals on oneday “work-from-home” room rentals.
“A lot of people were adversely affected and had either no power or Internet,” Hicks-Buckles said. “And pretty much the whole entire tourism industry has certainly taken a hit. And we needed to make some very, very difficult decisions just to sustain.”
The offer proved popular in the aftermath of Isaias and, once the damage from the storm had been cleared, the hotel, located on the Stamford border, decided to keep pushing the deal.
Hicks-Buckles said it’s mostly parents, with kids home from school, who have taken advantage of the deal in pursuit of solitude and efficiency. She said she has even hosted a remote teacher who used the hotel’s facilities for work.
The package includes a private room with an oversize desk, complimentary WiFi, access to a 65-inch TV with streaming capability, coffee, tea and bottled water The thing that’s also great for us, that we’ve really realized guests have liked, is we have our fitness center and indoor pool,” HicksBuckles said. “Guests have enjoyed taking a midday workout during course of day or at the end of the day.”
Marcia O’Kane, CEO and president of the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce, said she has recently fielded inquiries from area residents looking for places outside of the home where they can work. She pointed them to the Hyatt, she said.
“Most businesses have had to reassess their operating strategies during this incredibly challenging year,” O’Kane said. “This demonstrates their (Hyatt’s) versatility in offering a wide variety of options and not just your typical overnight hotel stay.”
The tourism industry has taken massive hits as a result of the pandemic. An August policy brief from the United Nations estimated that the industry would lose more than $1 trillion and threaten more than 100 million jobs worldwide by the end of the pandemic. Many hotels in Connecticut were closed for a while at the beginning of the pandemic and have been operating at much-lower-thannormal capacity for much of the public health crisis.
To adapt, Hyatt and others have had to think outside the box. In addition to the work-from-home spaces, during the holidays the hotel is also offering up its meeting rooms for rent, so that extended families can gather in a large enough space to still maintain social distancing.
It’s part of the new normal for hotels and a shift that Hicks-Buckles hopes will help the Hyatt get through the pandemic.
“We’re looking for longterm viability, so we have gotten very, very creative in terms of a variety of different things,’ Hicks-Buckles said. “This is just one of many things that we’ve been able to offer.”