Guillermo Gaspart
Founder and CEO of BYHOURS
Where to hear and read about Guillermo Gaspart1 episode or test
Guillermo Gaspart is the founder and CEO of BYHOURS, which sells hotel rooms by the hour and has grown to more than 3000 hotels. The thing most worth learning from him is how to launch a new category: grow hotel supply and customer demand together, starting with insider contacts.
you need to supply at the same time the demand
Driving Demand for a New Service in a Mature Market
Guillermo Gaspart: the story and the lessons
1Guillermo Gaspart and the idea behind BYHOURS
Gaspart is a fourth-generation hotelier who became a founder. He comes from a hotel family and was a hotel general manager, so he knew the hotels' problems and had colleagues to call.
His summary of the edge: "I know what is the main issues issues of the hotels and everything but also the network".
The idea came from outside hotels, the execution from inside. His co-founder Cristian brings the tech and marketing side. Gaspart supplied the hospitality knowledge needed to make the idea work.
In his words: "not only the innovation came from outside of industry I mean after you need the knowledge".
BYHOURS sells 3, 6 or 12 hour stays in regular hotels. The standard stay is 24 hours, but the gap between 2 p.m. check-in and noon check-out leaves about 22. Guests pay only for the hours they use, in 3 to 5 star hotels such as Marriott, Sheraton and InterContinental.
Japanese capsule cabins and airport boxes already existed, but nobody offered microstays in regular hotels.
Outside investors pushed BYHOURS past Spain, and it scaled. New investors in 2015 pushed expansion. Germany came first, then Italy, France and the UK. The company now has more than 3000 hotels across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with the US coming soon.
For a long time it stayed only in Spain because convincing hotels was slow. Then, as Gaspart puts it, "really soon we realize that it's a really scalable business". The team signs hotels by phone from Barcelona, with an office in Mexico to cover the 7 to 9 hour time difference.
2How Gaspart wins hotels and keeps supply and demand in step
Gaspart sold hotels a new product, not a cheaper room. Hotels resisted at first, even in Barcelona. He positioned hourly stays as a new category that adds revenue instead of cutting the room-night price.
Today hotels see extra sales on their P&L. In his words: "they are not reducing the price of the room night they're selling like a new category a new product".
He signs only 15 to 20 hotels in a city before marketing. Hotels that get no bookings get upset and close their sales on the platform. A city like Berlin starts with a small set of hotels, and marketing then sends them bookings.
Signing many hotels with no marketing spend leaves them empty, so supply cannot get ahead of demand.
With no search demand, early spend had to sell the idea. Nobody was searching Google for a hotel by the hour. The first marketing had to teach travelers the concept, and the brand came after.
Hotels and guests both had to learn a new idea at once: hotels to rent by the hour, guests to book that way.
His family's hotel associations opened doors abroad. Gaspart's family belongs to the main hotel associations worldwide, so contacts between colleagues came easily. His network also reaches Latin America and the United States.
3How BYHOURS markets across countries
The online playbook stays the same, run by local people. It combines Google, social media and retargeting in every country. Each culture differs, so locals manage the channels.
The thread is the same in Germany as in Barcelona. Only the local execution changes.
Gaspart hires local media experts for each country's TV campaign. TV campaigns ran in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, with the spot adapted to each culture. Local agencies pick the channel and slot.
His advice is "not to copy paste in all the different countries the same because it's completely different the channel the audience but also the creativity". He calls TV really expensive, but says it depends on the brand.
One TV spend also recruits hotel partners. TV mainly serves demand, but hospitality people who see the brand on TV want to join as hotel partners.
This lets one campaign serve both sides of the marketplace.
BYHOURS also tried airports, buses and print. It ran ads in airports, on buses, and in newspapers and magazines, including inside the airports themselves.
Airport audiences cost a lot because big brands compete for them, and offline is harder to measure than online.
4How Gaspart measures results and brings users back
He tracks TV and offline with coupon codes per channel. Facebook and Google show exactly where a user came from. TV and offline do not, so BYHOURS uses a different coupon code per channel and newer tools that estimate investment against return.
Someone may see a TV spot today and book two months later, so the read stays rough.
Gaspart treats retention as more important than acquisition cost. Investors ask about lifetime value and repeat use, and BYHOURS reports strong KPIs on both. It builds a loyalty program with the hotels and adds new ideas every day.
He says: "we have an incredible KPIs on that because once the people they know about by hours they want to repeat this".
Driving Demand for a New Service in a Mature Market
BYHOURS built a new category, booking hotel rooms by the hour (3, 6 or 12 hours), and had to teach both hotels and travelers the idea at once. The episode covers how an industry insider won the first hotels, balanced supply with demand, and scaled to more than 3000 hotels across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
Gaspart is a fourth-generation hotelier who became a founder. He comes from a hotel family and was a hotel general manager, so he knew the hotels' problems and had colleagues to call.
His summary of the edge: "I know what is the main issues issues of the hotels and everything but also the network".
The idea came from outside hotels, the execution from inside. His co-founder Cristian brings the tech and marketing side. Gaspart supplied the hospitality knowledge needed to make the idea work.
In his words: "not only the innovation came from outside of industry I mean after you need the knowledge".
BYHOURS sells 3, 6 or 12 hour stays in regular hotels. The standard stay is 24 hours, but the gap between 2 p.m. check-in and noon check-out leaves about 22. Guests pay only for the hours they use, in 3 to 5 star hotels such as Marriott, Sheraton and InterContinental.
Japanese capsule cabins and airport boxes already existed, but nobody offered microstays in regular hotels.
Outside investors pushed BYHOURS past Spain, and it scaled. New investors in 2015 pushed expansion. Germany came first, then Italy, France and the UK. The company now has more than 3000 hotels across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with the US coming soon.
For a long time it stayed only in Spain because convincing hotels was slow. Then, as Gaspart puts it, "really soon we realize that it's a really scalable business". The team signs hotels by phone from Barcelona, with an office in Mexico to cover the 7 to 9 hour time difference.
Gaspart sold hotels a new product, not a cheaper room. Hotels resisted at first, even in Barcelona. He positioned hourly stays as a new category that adds revenue instead of cutting the room-night price.
Today hotels see extra sales on their P&L. In his words: "they are not reducing the price of the room night they're selling like a new category a new product".
He signs only 15 to 20 hotels in a city before marketing. Hotels that get no bookings get upset and close their sales on the platform. A city like Berlin starts with a small set of hotels, and marketing then sends them bookings.
Signing many hotels with no marketing spend leaves them empty, so supply cannot get ahead of demand.
With no search demand, early spend had to sell the idea. Nobody was searching Google for a hotel by the hour. The first marketing had to teach travelers the concept, and the brand came after.
Hotels and guests both had to learn a new idea at once: hotels to rent by the hour, guests to book that way.
His family's hotel associations opened doors abroad. Gaspart's family belongs to the main hotel associations worldwide, so contacts between colleagues came easily. His network also reaches Latin America and the United States.
The online playbook stays the same, run by local people. It combines Google, social media and retargeting in every country. Each culture differs, so locals manage the channels.
The thread is the same in Germany as in Barcelona. Only the local execution changes.
Gaspart hires local media experts for each country's TV campaign. TV campaigns ran in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, with the spot adapted to each culture. Local agencies pick the channel and slot.
His advice is "not to copy paste in all the different countries the same because it's completely different the channel the audience but also the creativity". He calls TV really expensive, but says it depends on the brand.
One TV spend also recruits hotel partners. TV mainly serves demand, but hospitality people who see the brand on TV want to join as hotel partners.
This lets one campaign serve both sides of the marketplace.
BYHOURS also tried airports, buses and print. It ran ads in airports, on buses, and in newspapers and magazines, including inside the airports themselves.
Airport audiences cost a lot because big brands compete for them, and offline is harder to measure than online.
He tracks TV and offline with coupon codes per channel. Facebook and Google show exactly where a user came from. TV and offline do not, so BYHOURS uses a different coupon code per channel and newer tools that estimate investment against return.
Someone may see a TV spot today and book two months later, so the read stays rough.
Gaspart treats retention as more important than acquisition cost. Investors ask about lifetime value and repeat use, and BYHOURS reports strong KPIs on both. It builds a loyalty program with the hotels and adds new ideas every day.
He says: "we have an incredible KPIs on that because once the people they know about by hours they want to repeat this".