What is "hoteling"

n. (alternative spelling of hotelling English)

Hoteling (also hotelling or office hoteling) is a method of office management in which workers dynamically schedule their use of workspaces such as desks, cubicles, and offices. It is an alternative approach to the more traditional method of permanently-assigned seating. Hoteling is reservation-based unassigned seating; employees reserve a workspace before they come to work in an office. An alternate method of handling unassigned seating is hot desking, which does not involve reservations; with hot desking, a worker chooses a workspace upon arrival, rather than reserving it in advance.

With hoteling, workers are not assigned their own desks; instead, they reserve a desk for their temporary use for just the days they expect to work in the office. The benefits of hoteling over a more traditional, one-desk-per-employee scenario include saving costs on commercial real estate, as well as creating opportunities for staff to mingle and collaborate more.

The practice of hoteling has resulted from increased worker mobility, enabled by advances in mobile technology. Organizations whose workers travel frequently, or with growing remote or mobile workforces, are best suited to hoteling. A Washington Post article cites the rising use of hoteling as reflecting a shift from the office being a "home base" to being a "hospitality hub."

Companies started implementing hoteling in the 1990s, with consulting and accounting firms among the early adopters.