WhyHotel – Wikipedia

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WhyHotel is an alternative hospitality service provider that creates pop-up hotels. The company uses yet-to-be-leased units in new apartment buildings as fully furnished hotel suites. As such, the company does not own any real estate listings. The company is headquartered in Washington, DC.[1]

History[edit]

WhyHotel was founded in January 2017 by friends and real estate developers Jason Fudin, while he was working as an executive at Vornado Realty Trust, and Bao Vuong, as he was working as a Vice President of Development at PN Hoffman. The pair met in 2011 as volunteers at a real estate development organization.[2]

The company’s first pop-up hotel was a pilot program[3] from January to May 2017 which included 50 empty units at The Bartlett[3] in Pentagon City, VA, owned by Vornado Realty Trust, that were yet to be leased by long-term tenants. WhyHotel then spun off of Vornado Realty and became an independent, venture-backed startup in the summer of 2017.[4]

The company received $3.9 million in seed funding in June 2018,[5] $10 million in Series A funding[6] in December 2018 and $20 million in Series B funding in December 2019.  [7]

In 2018 WhyHotel opened pop-up hotels[8] in Baltimore, MD[9] in June,[10]  and Washington, D.C.[11] in October. The following year, WhyHotel opened pop-up hotels in Ballston in April 2019, Seattle in September 2019, and Tysons Corner, VA in December 2019. In 2020, the company has opened a pop-up hotel in Houston and announced new locations in Maryland, and Arlington.[12][13]

In May 2019, WhyHotel announced a new business arm called Hospitality Living, which aims to deliver flexible use home and hotel buildings constructed by WhyHotel. The company aims to construct the first of this type of building in 2022.[14]

Product overview[edit]

Hosts[edit]

Each location is staffed with “hosts” that offer on-site hospitality services[5] to guests akin to traditional hotels, such as 24-hour in-house concierge service.

Legality of hosting[edit]

Each location operates under a hotel license with all required regulatory approval before opening. WhyHotel also shares expenses associated with each building, including electricity, real estate taxes and other common-area maintenance costs. WhyHotel’s business model avoids converting apartment units permanently to hotel rooms eliminating the controversy of housing becoming tourist lodging.

References[edit]

  1. ^ “WhyHotel Corporate Headquarters”. WhyHotel Corporate Headquarters. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
  2. ^ “Our Founders’ Story”. whyhotel.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ a b Kusisto, Laura (2017-07-11). “Startups Help Landlords Turn Apartments Into Hotel Rooms”. Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  4. ^ “Vornado’s WhyHotel spinoff is on its own — and raising millions in funding”. www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-11-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ a b Wang, Jenna. “Pop-Up Hotel Startup WhyHotel Secures $3.9 Million In Seed Funding”. Forbes. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  6. ^ WhyHotel. “WhyHotel Raises $10M in Series A Funding and Announces New Pop-Up Locations”. www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  7. ^ “WhyHotel raises $20 million to bring pop-up hotel rooms to cities across the U.S.” VentureBeat. 2019-12-11. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  8. ^ Trejos, Nancy. “Pop-up hotels? Yeah, that’s a thing now”. USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  9. ^ magazine, Baltimore (2018-06-20). “A New Hotel Pop-Up Concept Comes to Baltimore”. Baltimore magazine. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  10. ^ Cohn, Meredith. “Pop-up hotel to operate out of upscale Baltimore apartment building”. baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  11. ^ “A look at WhyHotel’s pop-up hotels in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore”. KPNX. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  12. ^ Tunberg, Ingrid (20 February 2020). “WhyHotel To Launch Fifth Pop-Up Location in Columbia, MD”. GlobeSt. Retrieved 5 January 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ Koma, Alex (27 March 2020). “WhyHotel has a second pop-up hotel planned for Ballston”. bizjournals. Retrieved 5 January 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ^ “WhyHotel to start building its own properties”. www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-03-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)