Avoiding the commute

Employees out in the suburbs are becoming fixtures at city hotels

Jou-Yie Chou is among a new breed of late-stage pandemic hotel regulars: the super commuter.

As the pandemic drags into its third calendar year and remote work shifts to hybrid models, employees who moved to the suburbs or even farther are becoming fixtures at city hotels, where they are establishing comfortable boltholes after the commute in for meetings that can’t be taken over Zoom. And some hotels, eager to tap into this new market while still having yet to recover from the blow of 2020, are crafting new packages designed specifically for them, with amenities like parking, conference rooms and low midweek rates to sweeten the deal.

Take Chou, who moved to Lakeville, Connecticut, from New York City with his wife, Bentley Beich, early in the pandemic. To take the sting out of the more than 100-mile drive to his job as a partner at the design agency Post Co., Chou, 40, has become a regular on Tuesday nights at Brooklyn’s Ace Hotel (he is a former brand director for the hotel). He doesn’t entirely mind.

“Being back in the city, there’s still a liveliness to it that is pretty energizing. Being in and around that culture is a welcome change,” he said.

For hoteliers, regular stays by commuters like Chou offer one path back to recouping the massive losses they experienced during the pandemic. After dipping in the early weeks of 2022 as the omicron surge ripped through the country, occupancy rates in the United States climbed past 50% in February, according to STR, a global hospitality data and analytics company (for comparison, 2019 occupancy rates were 66.1%). The growth was apparent across not just weekend stays, but also those logged from Monday to Wednesday.

While the Ace Hotel chain has Chou’s loyalty, it hasn’t rolled out any promotions for midweek commuters. But other brands have. In Britain, The Accor Group, whose hotels include The Savoy, Mama Shelter and the Pullman London St. Pancras, crafted a Commute and Stay promotion, which includes two midweek nights in a discounted room in a city-center hotel with flexible cancellation and assistance in booking venues for after-work drinks or entertaining clients.

The citizenM hotel chain, which has properties in cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco and London, recently started a monthly subscription deal for regulars, offering one stay per month at 99 euros, or about $119. “We’re definitely seeing a new rhythm of one to two stays a month,” said Ernest Lee, the brand’s chief growth officer. “We saw it a little bit before the pandemic, but not to this level.”

The Hoxton Chicago has a Work Stay Play package, which the general manager, Amos Kelsey, created to allow guests access to the facility’s in-house co-working space after noticing an uptick in far-flung commuters booking midweek stays.

“That package has really been popular with suburbanites coming in from all corners of Chicago,” said Kelsey, who noted that midweek business at the Hoxton has outpaced other hotels in the city — at the end of 2021, corporate bookings were three times higher than the wider Chicago market.

At the San Francisco Proper Hotel, which is on Market Street, within walking distance of companies like Twitter and Uber, Mario Bevilacque von Günderrode, the general manager, said midweek occupancy rates are climbing at the same pace as weekend rates. “We actually started to change the way we do business and the way we cater to our clients following this trend,” he said. The hotel has made sure their room service menu is available 24/7 and all of their food and beverage outlets are open.

Some former city dwellers now facing hourslong commutes have considered renting pied-à-terres in their former urban homes. But skyrocketing rent prices — nationally, the cost to lease an apartment is up more than 10%, and in cities like Boston and Orlando, they’ve jumped more than 25% — have made regular hotel stays a more affordable option.

Bob Schmidt, 61, is the co-founder of a New York City-based financial-technology company, The Guarantors. A lifelong New Yorker, he moved to Cape Cod with his wife in January 2021 when work was fully remote, but shortly after began commuting into the office for a few days at a time, once every three weeks. He’s thought about buying a small apartment to use when he visits, but he crunched the numbers and realized it would cost much more than his hotel bills.

“If you’re only staying four or five nights a month in New York City, it doesn’t pay to have an apartment right now,” he said. By staying in hotels, he said, “I can move around as much as I want. I generally find a boutique hotel, go there for two or three months, and when I’ve had my fill, I pick another neighborhood and another hotel.”

Hotels in Manhattan are offering car commuters like Schmidt targeted deals. In Midtown Manhattan, the Crowne Plaza HY36 developed a parking package after staff noticed a significant uptick of midweek guests driving in from the tristate area. Parking in the hotel is generally $67 per night; the package, which is now the hotel’s most booked promotion, offers rates as low as $20.

And nearby, both the Conrad New York Downtown and the Conrad New York Midtown have crafted commuter-focused packages for workers who don’t have access to a conference room. At the Conrad New York Downtown, a package called “Work and Well” includes day use of a suite and room service delivery of breakfast, lunch and a 4 p.m. cocktail; at the Conrad New York Midtown, “Clock In at Conrad” allows up to eight colleagues to co-work in a sky suite with catered breakfast and lunch, and added perks, including fitness-center access and sessions with a wellness coach. Some hotels are even offering employees who have grown accustomed to midday naps on the living room sofa a spot for a quick snooze. At Walker Hotels, which has two locations in New York City, nap pod memberships are available for weekday power naps; four sessions, each good for 90 minutes, cost $199.