Marriott killed Sonder last November. The brand just came back from bankruptcy court, and it does not own a single room this time.
What Sonder Hotels Actually Were
Sonder properties never really were hotels, and that was the whole idea. The company began in Montreal, moved its headquarters to San Francisco, and built a business out of leasing apartment buildings and boutique properties, then renting the units by the night with an app instead of a front desk. Guests booked on their phone, got a door code, walked past no lobby, met no one, and slept in something closer to an apartment than a hotel room. At its peak the portfolio ran to roughly 9,000 units in 40 cities across 10 countries.
I liked the product more than I liked the company. If you needed a kitchen and two bedrooms in Manhattan or London and did not want to pay suite pricing, Sonder was often the smartest booking on the board. What it never solved was the balance sheet. Sonder Holdings signed long leases and carried the occupancy risk, which is the opposite of how Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton make money in their asset-light models. The company went public through a SPAC in 2022 (which could have been a sign that its financial footing was never really solid) at a valuation of nearly $2 billion, then spent the next three years shrinking, laying off staff, and fighting to file financial statements on time.
In a sense it was like WeWork for apartments which, coincidentally, Adam Neumann was trying to launch in WeLive at the end of his checkered tenure. However, WeLive, or his newest venture: Flow, is a model for actual apartment communities not apartments as hotels.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Live and Let's Fly.
