Book Hotels By The Hour

Hotel booking platforms are allowing customers to pay only for the number of hours a room is used. Anagh Pal explains how it works

- Anagh Pal

Imagine you’ve just landed in a city and wish to freshen up before a meeting or a conference. Or, maybe, you’re in transit and wish to relax a bit before catching a connecting flight. Or, you have wrapped up a pilgrimage itinerary and have a few hours to kill before your train departs. Typically, in such situations, you’d be compelled to book into a hotel and pay a full day’s tariff, even though you wouldn’t be occupying the room for more than a few hours. The alternative — wander around the city or hang out at a mall — can be tiresome, if you’ve had a long day.

Not anymore. A slew of online hotel booking platforms have now stepped in to give you your money’s (and your time’s) worth. These platforms tie up with hotels and let you book a room for as long as you need — which could be as little as a couple of hours. “We want to bring about a culture among people to use the hourly check-in-check-out format, which makes their life easy and efficient,” says Mohamed Arif Nariampully, CEO & co-founder, Hora Rooms. “We are particularly targeting customers, such as, trainers, backpackers, marketing executives, couples, bikers, and so on,” he says, adding that, the format also works well with students who may be visiting a city to sit for an exam.

How it works