Skift Take
When we said co-living would be the next big hospitality trend, we weren't kidding. It'll be fascinating to see how AccorHotels scales the co-living concept with Jo&Joe.
The co-living concept is entering the mainstream with AccorHotels' newest economy hotel brand: Jo&Joe.
While the Paris-based hospitality company didn't use the term "co-living" to describe the new brand, it's clear Jo&Joe is the embodiment of co-living, to be executed on a much larger scale than we've seen previously — to amount to 50 properties by 2020 in cities like Paris, Bordeaux, Warsaw, Budapest, and Sao Paulo, AccorHotels says.
In a statement, the company described Jo&Joe as "a brand that blends the best of private-rental hostel and hotel formats" and called it a "totally reinvented and disruptive experience in terms of design approach, catering, service, and customer journey."
At its most basic description, co-living is about community and developing connections among those who occupy that particular co-living space. It's group living, with shared kitchens and living areas, and social programming.
Frédéric Fontaine, senior vice president of AccorHotels' Marketing Innovation Lab, told Skift, that while Jo&Joe is inspired by design-driven hostels (ahem, Generator Hostels) and co-living concepts, it's in a category all its own.
"We didn't want to replicate an existing concept," Fontaine said. "This is not another new design hotel. The branding is in a slightly different tradition than what you can find in the market." He added that the power of AccorHotels' network, digital systems, and hospitality experience adds to Jo&Joe's ability to scale, and that Millennials are "reassured" knowing that a company like AccorHotels is behind this new concept.
Jo&Joe, in our view, is co-living brought to life for the contemporary traveler, tailor made
