It’s Beginning: Onefinestay Pilot With Hyatt Highlights Sharing Economy Collaboration To Come
Photo Credit: Some Onefinestay guests are using the facilities at the Hyatt Regency London in a beta between Hyatt and Onefinestay. Pictured is The Churchill Bar as shown on November 30, 2012. Flickr.com/Hyatt Regency London -- The Churchill / Roderick Eime
Skift Take
We've been watching how early adopters in business travel are beginning to partner with Uber and Airbnb. Likewise, segments of the hotel industry are beginning to accommodate the sharing economy. Five years from now that collaboration and cooptation will be in full swing.
There's a split developing among major hotels chains that are open to learning from and collaborating with sharing-economy lodging companies and those that want to dismiss them out of competitive and legal concerns at all costs.
Enter Onefinestay, the London-based startup that rents out members' upscale homes in London, Pars, New York and Los Angeles, and Hyatt hotels, which took part in a $40 million funding round in Onefinestay last year.
Onefinestay co-founder and CEO Greg Marsh says the collaboration between his company and the Chicago-based hotel chain, with its 11 brands and 600 properties worldwide, has evolved beyond the funding relationship with the two lodging companies exploring multiple ways to cooperate in the future.
The two companies, which see themselves as complementary in some respects, have been conducting a modest pilot program at the 5-star Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill over the past year.
Marsh says Onefinestay guests, who might be flying into
