HOTEL ROOMS AVAILABLE DURING DAYTIME

Published on au.news.yahoo.com I 05/09/2016 I Direct Link

There are many reasons for wanting to book a hotel room during daylight hours, and daytime booking service Dayuse aims to fill a gap in the market.The service, which allows customers to book rooms for time slots ranging from two to eight hours, launched in Paris in 2010 and is now available in 14 countries worldwide with 2000 hotel partners.CEO and founder David Lebee claims rooms are 35-75 per cent cheaper than average night rates, with prices remaining the same whether booked minutes before or up to six months in advance.Nearly half the site's users are business or transit travellers, needing a space to work or sleep. (One fifth of hotels listed on the UK site are close to airports.)Lebee acknowledges the service might be used for daytime dates. For now 40 per cent of the service's customer base in the UK are leisure users.We are aware some of our users are parents running out of time for each other at the end of a busy day, says Lebee. Dayuse offers them a solution, allowing a break in the day just for them.Others are simply keen to have a daycation, taking advantage of hotel facilities such as spas. A double room at the five-star Alexander House & Utopia Spa, set within 48ha of countryside on the borders of Sussex and Surrey, for example, can be booked from 8am to 4pm for STG99 ($A192).Aside from benefits to consumers, Lebee says his service is also injecting money into the hotel industry by making use of rooms that would otherwise remain idle.Around 70 per cent of hotel rooms are empty during the daytime, he says. We are offering hotels the chance to boost their income by 10 per cent by renting rooms twice a day.Building on the success of the service, Lebee plans to open an office in Hong Kong and hopes Dayuse will feature 4000 hotels worldwide by the end of the year.Visit www.dayuse.com