INDUSTRY

GUILLERMO GASPART HAS BEEN IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY ALL HIS LIFE, AND AS HE SAYS, HE WAS BORN IN A HOTEL, HIS GREAT-GRANDFATHER FOUNDED THE FIRST HOTEL CHAIN IN SPAIN IN 1930.

hen working in the family business 10 years ago, he met his business partner, Christian Rodriguez.

Guillermo remembers, “During our first meeting, we tried to answer the question of why a minimum stay in a hotel is 24 hours. Given the difference between the check-in time after 2pm and the check-out time before 12pm, it is actually only 22 hours. Why does the industry work on this minimum stay basis? We realised that nobody offered flexibility or personalisation when booking a hotel room. That was the starting point for BYHOURS. And from there, we evolved to become the first in the market to offer a true 24-hour package, giving users the possibility to access hotels with early check-in and late check-out.”

This innovative start-up was born, introducing the first pay-per-use system in the hotel industry, allowing customers to choose the hotel checkin and check-out time, and pay only for the hours they need. Guillermo says it was hard to convince the first hotels to adopt the BYHOURS model, but the user demand was there. He explains, “We knew there were a lot of people close to the airports and near business centres that wanted to book a hotel for a few hours. We started in Barcelona 10 years ago, then expanded into Spain, Europe and Latin America.”

Xavier Tous Guri, CTO at BYHOURS, adds, “The company started life as a B2C model, then three years ago, it decided to move into the B2B and B2B2C markets to compete with other players in the industry. That is where we are today. In the coming months, we will continue to work towards extending our capacity. The challenge will be to keep iterating internally efficiently. Last year, we introduced the product development mindset, so all the technology we apply is built around these three different business verticals.”

Guillermo specifies, “Although we started as an OTA (B2C), our mission is to be the travel tech that manages and distributes microstays worldwide, with our own channel and app, but opening the product to third parties. In other words, we are the bed bank or channel manager of microstays.”

BYHOURS is a cloud-native company, making it super-agile and able to introduce anything it needs quickly and efficiently. Xavier continues, “To expand our capabilities, we need to be able to analyse all information, using tools such as big data and analytics. We are working with different partners to implement the best practices you can imagine. The challenge is connecting all the information we have in order to make the best business decisions.”

The hospitality industry has faced a technology transformation in recent years, with tech companies beginning to realise that the big hotel chains want to avoid intermediaries and be able to automate. Guillermo elaborates, “Connectivity is the buzzword in the travel space today. Connecting the technology you are using across the various channels is crucial. It is true that on a booking level, we may still be considered a small company, but on the technology side, we are already mature enough and, in fact, we are connected to the leading travel techs in the industry. But we still need to prove ourselves every day. So, we are not a small company in terms of our technology, as we are able to speak the same language as another larger company.”

BYHOURS’ competitors are focused on offering a product that allows the user to book a hotel stay for a day. Here is where BYHOURS is unique. Guillermo explains, “Our USP is that we offer 24-hour check-in and three different durations of stay. None of our competitors is doing the same. We have the technology to connect with the hotels and other players in the travel industry. Our main commitment is to be the travel tech leading the way globally on this new concept of the microstay.”

The microstay concept is something BYHOURS has created and manages internally through its SaaS software. Xavier adds, “The industry is finite, but we are trying to find room for the microstay concept, which is a technical challenge in itself.”

So, who is the typical BYHOURS user? Guillermo answers, “The average age is between 38 and 44 years old, and the split between women and men is 45/50 per cent, so it is very close. Our main use cases are near airports, so people who are moving i.e. travellers, business people, or families. After that, we focus on use cases near train stations or the main business areas, where people go for meetings or conferences. We also have users with local experience, which are people who use the hotels in their own cities. During Covid-19, this type of user grew because people could not fly, so they realised that they could book the hotels in their own cities instead. It is a good experience to go to the swimming pool, spa or restaurant for a few hours. This new user has helped us to grow the business. In the last six months, while the travel industry has recovered, many people still like to visit hotels in their own cities.”

Guillermo believes it is crucial to form an ecosystem of