The lines between leisure and business travel have been becoming blurred in recent years.
Accor's WOJO initiative, which means that the hotel group's properties will offer transient work space as well as accommodation, has taken blurring one step further.
The hotel company last week announced plans to open 1,200 co-working WOJO spaces within the next three years across its brand portfolio. Budget, mid-scale and luxury properties will shortly include dedicated workspaces. WOJO was set up in 2015 and Accord became a 50% stakeholder in 2017. The new launch sees WOJO rolled out to the group's properties.
Accor's strategy is no longer just to offer business travellers high-speed in-room broadband or a "laptops welcome" atmosphere in lobby areas but also now to offer what it calls "augmented hospitality" "to increase its relevance in the daily lives of consumers".
Steven Taylor, chief brand officer, said: "We are reimagining hospitality not as a place or service, but as infinite connected moments, whether you want to live, work, or play. We are creating a holistic ecosystem around the consumer and WOJO is a great example of how our unique augmented hospitality strategy will allow us to connect into the everyday lives of customers."
Accor is not the only one moving into this space. The success of co-working brands such as WeWork has led others to see that company's spectacular success. The Hoxton Hotel Group has just announced a shared workspace concept it is calling Working From_.
Work used to mean a man in a suit who carried a briefcase to the same office space every day except for when he — and it was invariably a 'he' — travelled to meet someone elsewhere. Hotels used to be places where you could sleep at that "somewhere else" and have access to food, drink and business services.
But this was before connectivity meant that work was no longer confined to M-F, 9-5 and an office. The connectivity revolution has meant that people can work anytime, anywhere.
And just as work no longer happens exclusively at a dedicated work location, trains and planes are no longer only means of transport and hotels are no longer solely about the comfortable bed and power shower.
The traditional travel supplier is no longer only supplying travel facilities for travellers.
Accor's initiative is about more than providing digital nomads with a place to work. It is taking away barriers as emphatically as Clark Gable's snatching away the blanket in It Happened One Night's famous "Walls of Jericho" scene.
In a not-too-distant future, many travel suppliers will no longer offer travel products and services exclusively. The natural corollary is that it will no longer be only travel companies looking to supply travel products and services.
If you're dropping a Rimowa suitcase into your Amazon shopping cart, why not add a business class flight to the same transaction? This should work for corporate buyers as no one ever questions Amazon's ability to collect quality data sets.
By the same token online grocers could also carry a rail tickets channel.
Technology has lowered the entry barriers so that many can expand their businesses to offer more of the other goods and services which their customers want.
So as hotels start to offer short-term office real estate as well as beds, we shouldn't be surprised to see distribution giants also start to offer travel channels.
Travel sourcing could be becoming a whole lot more complicated.