Hotel offers day stays for Savannah travelers

The Hilton Garden Inn Savannah Airport is changing the way you view a hotel stay.

The hotel recently partnered with HotelsByDay to offer daytime stays or ‘daycays’ from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The airport location is currently the only hotel in the local market to offer the HotelsByDay model.

Ideal for travelers with long layovers or day trippers, guests have full access to all of the hotels amenities, including free Wi-Fi, pool, fitness center and airport shuttle.

“Check-out times downtown are usually 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. and when your flight doesn’t leave until 8 p.m., instead of being trucked around and carrying their luggage all over the city, they can come here, drop their stuff off and then enjoy what Pooler has to offer while waiting for that flight or get some work done in their room,” said hotel general manager Shawn Wallick.

“Once you check in, you’re a full guest while you’re here.”

HotelsByDay, which launched about two years ago, has more than 450 hotels listed in more than 50 cities across the country, including, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta and New York.

The rooms are booked through hotelsbyday.com and process is similar to booking a regular overnight stay. Several factors, including payment time and check-in times, will vary by property.

HotelsByDay founder Yannis Moati, who traveled extensively for 15 years and later became a travel agent and tour operator, said that guests often requested early check-ins or late check-outs and he would have to pull strings with hotels, which wasn’t always an easy feat.

“As a tour guide, I’d walk the halls of hotels and see empty rooms during the day, so I knew something was missing,” Moati said of his inspiration behind the company.

Moati said after the company was featured on AARP’s website last summer their phones exploded with calls and the phones started ringing again after being featured on Shark Tank about a month ago, but it’s still a challenge to an industry that can be reluctant to change, he said.

“But it takes a forward-thinking property and management to say yes to these things,” he said.

Moati said after a hotel is listed, his team works with staff to study patterns in that particular market to calculate the best rate and hours for the hotel. The hotel is then free to tweak their formula to best suit their needs, but HotelsByDay requires that the property book rooms for a minimum of four hours.

“Anything less than that could attract the wrong type of person,” he said, adding that the company targets three- to four-star hotels to ensure a quality experience.

“Savannah is definitely a target market,” Moati said.

“We have Atlanta and tons of hotels in Florida, and we’d love to add more hotels in Georgia.”

Wallick said the airport property just launched the “daycay” option this week, so the hotel still has a couple of operational aspects to work out, but the plan is to offer the daily stays seven days a week for $75.

“Right now, since we just got signed up, we’ve turned the weekends off because there’s a lot of moving pieces with housekeeping and other operational things to work out,” he said.

“It’s a fun concept, and we’re excited about it.”