Location-independent professionals can use Remote Dream to help them find the co-working hotels and workation hotspots around the world. Jenny Southan reports
Research by MBO Partners shows that 15.5 million digital nomads in the US now exist, an increase of 112% since 2019. With many destinations and accommodation providers now specifically targeting remote workers, travel tech provider Impala is empowering start-ups to help people work from anywhere.
One example is Remote Dream, which is a new travel company that enables digital nomads to book remote work location based on specific criteria such as time zone, climate, coworking spaces, event programmes and activities.
Joeri Nanov, co-founder of RemoteDream, tells Globetrender: “RemoteDream aims to make working remotely from anywhere as easy as possible. We do this by curating and offering a set of great hotels and hostels to work remote from.
“We believe that travelling and working will be more entwined than ever before. People who now have the opportunity to work from outside the office will increasingly look for ways to do so from locations and places that they truly wish to be.
“This could be warm places in the wintertime, places with great nature, or any other preferences these people find most important. What we also see is that in working from outside the office, people are looking for like-minded people at these locations to share their experiences with.”
What inspired him to launch the company? Nanov says: “The idea came about based on my own experience as a remote worker – I was on a cycling trip but needed to fit my work around it. When I tried to book accommodation via the normal channels, I became frustrated with the process. These platforms just didn’t provide the information I needed about the accommodation facilities.”
The speed in which Remote Dream was able to go to market was thanks to Impala, a booking API that seamlessly connects room sellers and hotels so they can work together directly. Room sellers can access the technology and inventory they need to build new, differentiated products without any integration costs whilst accommodation providers can quickly gain access to new markets.
Nanov says: “Thanks to Impala’s hotel inventory, we now sell 300 locations across the world, offering over 40,000 beds in 25 countries; all of which offer something valuable for the remote worker. Impala’s open distribution has allowed us to partner with different accommodations and negotiate rates and terms easily.”
He claims that 34 per cent of the digital nomad market is casual, made up of those wanting to combine a holiday with a period of remote work. Their booking data indicates that most of Remote Dream’s customer’s book stays for between two and four weeks, with the majority searching for a community hub where they can work, relax and network with like-minded people.
Caroline Hudack, chief marketing officer at Impala, says: “It is great to see how our technology is championing travel start-ups that are responding to new trends. The post-pandemic world has seen a dramatic shift in the way that we work and travel, and technology needs to adapt and respond to these shifts.
“RemoteDream is helping to solve problems for a new age of remote workers, enabling them to travel according to their personal needs. Impala’s open distribution category allows RemoteDream to connect easily with accommodation partners to negotiate their terms directly whilst at the same time opening up valuable new customer streams for many of our accommodation partners.”