Large firms may be scaling back flexible work policies, but
it’s likely that remote-first businesses and heightened demand for corporate
retreats will now shape the next phase of digital nomad hospitality.
GLOBAL REPORT – As the chapter closes on Selina following its
rebrand to Socialtel, a question arises: What's next for hospitality brands
that have a similar focus on digital nomads and remote workers?
The phase out of the storied brand comes amid a worldwide
backtrack on remote work policies. But many hospitality brands remain positive
on the opportunity, pointing towards a new normal. To recap: Selina targeted
millennial and Gen Z travelers looking to “stay, travel and work abroad
indefinitely.” It ran into financial difficulties following its public listing,
declaring insolvency in July 2024. It was then acquired by Singapore’s
Collective Hospitality in August, which bought the majority of Selina’s
operating subsidiaries from its administrators.
Membership-based hospitality company Outsite, which targets
a similar market of digital nomads and remote workers, is now expanding despite
the scaling back of remote work policies.
“We don’t see less demand from remote workers,” said
Emmanuel Guisset, founder and CEO of Outsite. “What we see is fewer employees
from companies. We see more and more entrepreneurs and freelancers. There’s
more of a shift that happened in the last 12 to 18 months.”
Guisset plans to extend Outsite’s footprint into Africa and
Asia, among other destinations, by creating a new membership model. It will do
this by selecting hotels that are already suitable for its brand, offering the
right combination of features to allow guests to work and play and by saving
costs operating its own properties.
We don’t see less demand from remote workers. What we see is fewer employees from companies. We see more and more entrepreneurs and freelancers. There’s more of a shift that happened in the last 12 to 18 months.
Emmanuel Guisset
Guisset likens this “curated list” strategy to Design
Hotels’ model. “We don’t have to manage them. We are basically like a
specialized OTA [online travel agency] for them,” Guisset said.
The tactic mirrors furnished apartment operator Blueground’s
launch of a partner network of third-party, vetted properties, which meant it
could satisfy growing demand outside its core markets where it lacked
accommodation.
Outsite’s expansion takes place despite the fact that many
companies are canceling fully remote work policies. Such a large number of
“return to office mandates” even prompted Business Travel News Europe to
declare these policies a trend in its 2025 Hotlist.
The number of companies allowing employees to work fewer
than three days in the office has dropped by more than half—from 17% last year
to just 8% this year—according to a poll in FM:Systems’ annual 2025 Inside the
Workplace Report. 5. Office attendance is also stabilizing, the report adds,
with 57% of employers now requiring in-office work five days a week, up from
48% last year.
More corporate policy tweaks will likely follow after United
States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in
office requiring federal agencies to call employees back into the office full
time “as soon as practicable” alongside a directive to end remote work
arrangements where possible.
Two worlds
Maxime Eduardo, co-founder of French startup Naboo, which
specializes in corporate retreats, said he believes a new normal has now been
established.
“There are two worlds here,” Eduardo said, referring to the
world before the pandemic and the world after. “And what I can tell you is that
our clients tend to stop remote working as much as they can.”
Naboo recently raised e20 million in Series A funding,
reflecting the strength of the corporate retreat market.
“The [remote work] culture rose fast after COVID because
suddenly everybody was doing remote working, and then you had to find a way to
gather people in the same room at the same time, which is a bit of a challenge.
The new normal is at least three days at the office, but then it comes to what
days,” he said.
There is also the question of how to compensate for what can
be lost by not working side by side colleague. Earlier this year J.P. Morgan
CEO Jamie Dimon said younger employees have been left behind socially because
of hybrid and remote work arrangements.
We're working a lot with scale-ups, with big tech companies that are based in Dublin or in London. They organize lots of overnight retreats, in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal.
Maxime Eduardo
“The young generation is being damaged by this,” Dimon said,
according to a Bloomberg report.
Eduardo said this is another driver of corporate retreats.
“You need to make sure that your colleagues still spend time
together and get to know each other, especially when it comes to junior
people,” he added. “They’re just out of school.”
While based in France, Naboo operates in the United Kingdom
and the Netherlands, and this year it already expanded to Spain, Italy and
Germany.
“We're working a lot with scale-ups, with big tech companies
that are based in Dublin or in London. They organize lots of overnight
retreats, in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal,” Eduardo said.
Guisset added he was seeing more organizations use Outsite
properties for corporate retreats, in some cases for up to a week. He claimed
remote work was being offered as a perk for their employees too, referring to
New York marketing agency Gradient signing a deal for its 100 employees.
“There's lots of opportunities. Companies are using it
almost like a marketing effort,” he said.
Strengthening market
Other experts believe demand for remote worker-friendly
accommodation will continue to grow, particularly from smaller organizations.
Claudia Gualdi, travel intelligence data team lead at
Riskline, previously pointed out that startups and smaller companies tend to be
more flexible in adopting such arrangements compared to traditional,
larger corporations.
One talent mobility specialist predicts an increase in these
smaller companies organizing short-term business travel trips requiring visas
as the need to work in offices increases.
“Over the last three years, we have seen a mammoth increase
in small and medium-sized firms realizing they can hire employees anywhere
globally, providing them with access to cost-effective labor and also in-demand
skills outside of their home countries,” said James Tomlin, co-founder and CEO
of VisaDoc. “In a world of rapid AI [artificial intelligence] advancement,
personal relationships are now more important than ever before, and
international travel to meet clients and colleagues must be a part of this.”
Nomadic lifestyle
Selina’s brief spell in administration appears to have
impacted its Remote Year division, which organized “work from anywhere”
programs for digital nomads. The division shut down in December 2024 after
being bought by Collective Hospitality. However, another travel expert doesn’t
equate its closure with a loss of appetite for this more traditional digital
nomad lifestyle.
Sally Bunnell, founder and CEO of travel marketplace
NaviSavi, said organizations like WiFi Tribe are already collecting new
members.
“Some digital nomads would rather change careers to keep
their lifestyle than return back to the office,” she said.