Welcome to RemoteHotelier #84!
In today’s newsletter:
This week’s main story is a hotel that took out the TVs, the minibars and every drop of alcohol, and still expects guests to pay premium. It hasn’t opened yet, but it’s already a good lesson in how to package a niche.
By the way, happy early Halloween 🎃
🧬 This hotel tests your DNA before you can book a room
🔌 + 2 new integrations
🤝 + 1 new partnership
🆕 + 2 new product updates
💼 + 6 new jobs in the job board
🧬 This hotel tests your DNA before you can book a room
Childhood friends Harrison Hide and Louie Blake are building Long Lane, a hotel focused on biohacking.
It has 30 rooms (20 in the main house and 10 forest cabins) on a 55-acre estate, and the founders have built the product around each guest’s health data.
1/ There’s a niche for everything.
First of all, after learning about this story, now I can confirm that there are niches for everything. Many of them waiting to be packaged into a hospitality product.
2/ Hard to get greener.
A national park one hour away from London (UK), 55 acres of woodland, forest cabins and a natural swimming pool.
On top of that, they’ve been building in public from day one, and they must be doing something right because they have almost 47k followers before even opening their doors:
There’s a tendency in hospitality to overuse the color green (mind you, this is a whole debate in itself). But what we can’t deny is that someone looking for a green environment will feel naturally inclined (pun intended) toward this brand.
3/ Biohacked bedrooms.
I mean, what the h*ll is even that? Well, it means that their rooms are built around sleep and recovery, with things like air filtration systems, organic materials and red-light panels.
Look, am I the biggest fan of the term “biohacking”? Far from that. However, I’d be very curious to know what it’s like to sleep on an Eight Sleep mattress (just to mention one of the wacky services they use).
They also offer heavier stuff, like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which for some strange reason reminded me of this:
This is the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Dragon Ball, where one day in the real world equals one full year inside the chamber
4/ Removing “essential” services.
Jokes aside, they removed TVs, minibars, and you won’t find a single drop of alcohol on the property (despite alcohol being one of the highest-margin items in hospitality).
Don’t you worry though, because they’re replacing the mini bar with an Elixir Bar (where they sell stuff that doesn’t have alcohol, but looks more expensive than alcohol and most likely has better margins than alcohol).
Guests can also book additional supplements and treatments straight from the in-room menu. So as you can see, the margin doesn’t disappear, it just moves somewhere else 🙂
5/ The membership starts with a DNA test.
If you want to become a member, that’s where you start. In simple terms, biometric testing measures how your body is doing right at the moment of the test (things like body composition, heart rate or blood markers).
DNA methylation looks at chemical “tags” on your DNA that switch genes on and off, and it’s often used to estimate your “biological age”.
The science behind using it for personalized plans is still a work in progress, but they use it to shape your nutrition, treatments and training, and members track their programs through a dedicated app.
This process alone adds a touch of exclusivity hard to get somewhere else.
6/ Brilliant bundling.
One more thing that caught my attention is that the layouts are designed to encourage calm, focus and connection. Shared spaces include libraries, co-working areas and phone-free zones designed to reduce distraction and get people to actually talk to each other.
Up to this point, you can see there’s a lot of jargon. But if you think about it, they’re covering the essentials: sleep well, eat well, don’t drink alcohol, touch some grass, and stay socially connected.
They’re just bundling it all up behind a brand in a brilliant way.
7/ It’s not for everyone. And that’s the point.
If you’re still reading, you’re probably thinking that this isn’t cheap. You’re not wrong: monthly memberships are expected to range from £100 to £500, and the price of the rooms starts from £350 per night.
But let’s be honest, whoever is looking for cryotherapy and IV drips instead of tequila inside the minibar knows it won’t be cheap.
The main takeaway for me here is that pretty much any niche has premium options to a certain extent, and the key is to identify what that is and offer it in an easy and compelling way to your guests.
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RESOURCES
📍 Next Event: World Travel Market London (3–5 November).
📅 See the full hotel tech event calendar.
💻 Get your PMS comparison spreadsheet.
💸 Get your RMS comparison spreadsheet.
INTEGRATIONS
🔌 Cloudbeds and Agoda plug into Meta’s Muse: Cloudbeds hotels in the US will start showing up in the AI agent in early 2027 with bookings landing in their own booking engine, while Agoda is already live in Singapore and Japan. [Link] and [Link]
Meta’s Muse is the new personal AI agent that handles tasks on your behalf, like planning and booking trips, among other things.
🔌 Wyndham opens its inventory to AI booking agents: it pulls rates and availability straight from its central reservation system. [Link]
As you can see, personal AI agents seem to be where the AI industry is focusing resources now with the latest releases of Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dots, and xAI Grok Bot.
PARTNERSHIPS
🤝 Duetto becomes B&B Hotels revenue management partner: rolling out its RMS across more than 930 properties in 19 countries. [Link]
It seems like profitability was the deciding factor for B&B, making this a huge deal for Duetto.
PRODUCT UPDATES
🆕 BWH Hotels renames itself WorldHotels: bringing its 18 brands and more than 4,000 hotels under one masterbrand. [Link]
🆕 HiJiffy launches Email Copilot: an AI assistant that drafts email replies for reservations teams but never sends anything until a person reviews it. [Link]
JOB BOARD
HOTELS
💼 Senior Group Sales Manager | Remote (based in the US) | Hilton.
💼 Director, Upscale Revenue Management | Remote (based in the US) | Choice Hotels International.
💼 Manager, Remote Sales Support | Remote (based in the US) | Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
TECH
💼 Associate Sales Executive - Southern Europe | Remote (based in the UK) | Revinate.
💼 Account Executive - UK | Remote (based in the UK) | Lighthouse.
💼 Customer Success Manager | Remote (based in the US) | Guesty.
That’s all for today, thank you for reading. If this was helpful, share it with someone who'd find it useful too:
See you next week!
Jose
