Co-Living and Co-Working Are Gimmicks, Declares 25hours Hotels CEO

You might think that the co-founder of a lifestyle hotel brand like 25hours might embrace emerging hospitality concepts such as homesharing, co-living, and co-working. But for Christoph Hoffman, CEO of Hamburg-based 25hours Hotels — even though those ideas might be dominating chatter among investors and developers — there’s a danger in everyone chasing the same trends. “Everybody’s jumping on the same train, and it becomes, to me, funny and maybe also dangerous in some areas, because too many people are doing the same thing,” Hoffman said. “Then it repeats itself and everyone has the same kind of product.” While he thinks of co-working as “interesting form a hospitality point of view” he also believes hoteliers should simply “create a hotel product which is more dedicated to the local crowd, or to the community who is using a city like New York or Dubai on a frequent basis.” A guest, Hoffman explains, “is renting the entire space,” so why not off