Coworking Marketing Weekly #73 - What Hotels Can Teach Coworking Spaces About Marketing 🏨

Hey there,

Rosee from Cobot here!

You already have the part of hospitality that can't be manufactured: real relationships between people who share the same space every week.

But hotels and hostels are very good at turning a physical space into an experience, and then making that experience work harder as a business.

From the moment someone books to the moment they leave a review, there are small things hotels do deliberately that coworking spaces can borrow.

Hotels start the experience the moment someone books. Confirmation emails, local tips, check-in reminders, little details that make guests feel expected.

Do the same between "signed up" and "walked in."

Offer a quick tour before their first day. Tell them who they should meet. Have their desk ready.

👉 I've written more about this in The First 7 Days Funnel, which looks at the touchpoints that shape those first days, and Creating Great Welcome Packs, which covers the physical welcome experience.

The bigger idea here is simple: the journey itself is part of your marketing.

Look at The Social Hub, a hotel-coworking hybrid with locations across Europe. Their homepage leads with people, community, events, and all the things you can actually do there.

Coworking has an even stronger version of this. Members stay long enough to actually become part of the place. Weekly regulars become friends. Someone’s project becomes a collaboration.

And there’s research to back up why that matters. A peer-reviewed study by Lashani and Zacher (2021) surveyed 181 coworkers across Germany and Austria and examined five needs: community, collaboration, amenities, location, and cost. Only one predicted job satisfaction and intent to stay: community fit.

That kind of belonging is your marketing edge.

Hotels know that the people delivering the experience matter just as much as the room itself. Your community manager plays a similar role.

They know who’s who, make introductions, spot when someone needs a hand, and help new members settle in.

A lot of that work is easy to overlook because, when it’s done well, it just feels natural. But that care can be one of the reasons people enjoy being in your space and choose to come back.

From our own experience being part of the workish.berlin community, we’ve seen firsthand how much of a difference that human connection makes.

So don’t reduce the role to a smiling face on your website or the person who organizes your events. Let people see the person behind the experience.

Put them in your content, introduce them to prospective members, and give them the time and space to actually build relationships within the community.

Hotels put their rooms, conference spaces, and ballrooms to work whenever they’re not in use.

Your space can do the same.

Evenings, weekends, and quiet weekdays can become workshops, dinners, off-sites, shoots, or events. External bookings can bring in revenue and introduce new people to your community.

Cobot's External Bookings lets non-members book and pay for rooms, event spaces, and day passes directly through your website.

Hotels are better resourced, better staffed, and have decades of hospitality craft behind them. But there's one thing they can't manufacture: a member who's been coming to your space every Tuesday for two years and brings a friend because it feels like theirs.

Borrow the craft. Lead with the community. That's the combination no hotel can copy.

See you in two weeks, and happy coworking! 🥳

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Coworking Software

Cobot Coworking Software, 2026