Most coworking spaces and business centres have meeting rooms that members fill on Tuesday morning and nobody uses on Thursday afternoon. Those hours can be rented out by the hour to people who will never join: a counsellor who needs a quiet room once a week, a trainer running a one-day course, a company interviewing in your town. Here is how to do it, whatever tool you use.
Which rooms and hours to open to non-members
Open the hours members don't use and protect the ones they compete for, after checking a month of bookings to see which is which.
- Members first at peak. If rooms are full from 10 to 4 on weekdays, keep one for members during those hours and sell the rest.
- Outsiders in the gaps. Early mornings, late afternoons, evenings and Saturdays cost your members nothing.
- Outsiders pay more. Offer everyone the member rate and you give away a reason to join.
Who books a meeting room by the hour
Write each room's description for the people who need a room but not an office:
- Therapists, counsellors and coaches: a quiet, private room, often the same slot every week. Soundproofing matters more than a screen.
- Trainers: a bigger room for a half day or a day, with a screen, a flipchart and lunch.
- Recruiters and interview panels: the room plus somewhere for the next candidate to wait.
- Visiting teams from companies with no office nearby: arrive, plug in, work, come back next quarter.
- Tutors, small clubs and committees: evenings and weekends, the hours members leave empty.
A page with the price, paid when they book
Give each room a page with real photos, its capacity, equipment and prices by the hour, half day and day, and let people see the free times and book there and then. A room sold for six needs six chairs and space for six laptops.
Take payment when they book. Invoicing a stranger means chasing them, and a booking that costs nothing to make costs nothing to skip. For a big room booked for a whole day, a deposit is enough.
Don't demand a day's notice. Plenty of people look for a room the morning they need it, and a 24-hour rule turns every one of them away.
Write the cancellation rule down once and show it before they pay: say, a full refund up to 48 hours before, nothing after. Someone hiring a room for their work is a business customer, and your terms mainly govern that booking. Consumer law covers individuals acting wholly or mainly outside their business; with them, a term making them pay a disproportionately high sum for not going ahead can be unfair. This is general information, not legal advice.
Arrival, access and the gap between bookings
Someone who has never been in needs, before setting off: the address, the door, who lets them in, the wifi and when the room must be empty. Put it in the confirmation, and have someone from your team, not a member, meet first-timers.
Leave a gap between bookings, because people arrive early and meetings overrun. Ten or fifteen minutes covers it and lets you reset the room: end bookings at ten to the hour, or leave a quarter of an hour unsold between them. If nobody is on site in the evening, sell those hours only to bookers you know.
Advertising a meeting room for hire
- Your Google Business Profile. Add photos of each room, and put the link to your booking page under Booking.
- Your own site. A page per room with capacity, price and a button to book, in the words people search: meeting room hire, training room, therapy room by the hour.
- Your members. They know the coaches, trainers and recruiters who need a room. Tell them what you sell and give them the link.
A booking marketplace can bring first bookers for a commission on each; repeat bookers should use your own page.
Bringing a one-off booker back
Make the second booking easy:
- Offer a fixed slot. The counsellor who booked three Tuesdays running wants Tuesday held: book it weekly for them.
- Send a code for the quiet hours. A discount on a Friday afternoon fills an hour that would sit empty anyway.
- Reward the regulars. A free hour after ten bookings costs you an hour you probably wouldn't have sold.
- Write to the ones who stopped. A trainer who booked every month and hasn't for two may simply have forgotten you.
Doing it with Tuora
Tuora gives your space its own booking page that shows only the rooms and times really free, with each room's photos and prices that change with the day, the hour and the length. Outsiders pay online when they book, in full or as a deposit, into your own Stripe account, and if they cancel after your deadline, the payment is kept. You can hold a weekly slot for a regular, and send offers to newcomers, regulars or those who've gone quiet. More on how it works for coworking spaces.
You can try it before talking to anyone: book a room by the hour at our demo coworking and see the booking from its back office.