UK: France-based app Staycation will launch in London this April for users to book 24 hour experiences at luxury and boutique hotels.
Staycation has over 500 partners on the platform. All bookings are last minute, with sales opening each Wednesday at 9am for the next seven days, showcasing one-off negotiated offers.
All of the packages include an overnight stay, breakfast for two and an experience – for example cocktail making or afternoon tea.
In London, more than 30 hotels are now part of the app including Corinthia Hotel, Henrietta Hotel, The Stratford, Great Scotland Yard and The Portobello.
Explaining the story behind the app, Kevin Hutchings, co-founder of Staycation, said: “It was 40 degrees in Paris. We couldn’t take holidays and were craving a break. A hotelier friend mentioned that summer was actually the low season for city hotels. We thought it would be fantastic to enjoy all these empty rooms, their pools, their spas, and create a new form of mini-vacations for Parisians stuck in Paris.
“We launched the idea as a mailer with three hotel offerings and within the first few weeks had received 400 phone calls from people wanting to book. The next day we quit our jobs to launch Staycation.”
The app serves two million users in France – 91 per cent of whom live less than one hour away from the hotel. It launched five years ago and has helped push the average hotel occupancy from 40 per cent to over 80 per cent.
Hutchings established the app in 2017 alongside Mathieu Ecollan and Mathieu Dugast whilst they all worked for the same company.
