[Startup Article] The era of road warriors is over, make way for work/life balance!

At the time of COVID and teleworking, finding a better balance has become a priority for most working people. When it comes to travel, what most professionals want can be summed up as: travelling less and better. Services for travellers now need to adapt to their lifestyles, and not the other way around.

The idea behind Bonport is that time spent travelling should be by choice and not imposed. The aim is to remove this useless source of stress caused by having to catch up on work, which could have been done whilst travelling, in the evening, at home. We have a conviction: a useful hour saved during the day is an extra hour in the evening to spend with your family or friends. With the crisis, the trends that have been emerging over the last decade and that were behind this innovation have been considerably strengthened and now affect a far broader scope than business travel.

Greater mobility in working methods

Mobile working methods were until now the domain of freelancers, managers whose days are punctuated by meetings, and professions that are mobile by their very nature: sales reps, consultants, network managers, etc. Now they affect almost all professions where teleworking is possible.

There will no longer be one place of work but a multitude of places where we will go during our working days.

Due to companies reducing the size of their offices, an increasing amount of time is being spent working outside the usual working environment. We do of course spend a great deal of time at home, but the new aspect also creates new mobility on a daily basis: going to business meetings outside corporate meeting spaces, meeting up with colleagues, going shopping, spending time at a second home, etc.

Increased times of connectivity

At the same time, video conferences have become part of our daily lives and now determine how our days are organised. This is true whether you are at the office, working from home or travelling. And in the future it will be hard to imagine a day without it.

Less acceptance of wasting time

With lockdown and the adoption of teleworking, employees and employers have got a taste for days with no down time. This results in people questioning the way that time is traditionally spent in a day (time spent in transport, time spent in meetings, etc.). The challenges of achieving a seamless organisation and optimising our time have become essential: we are entering the era of useful time.

“Bonport was founded with the aim of allowing travellers and people far from their office to make better use of their time. More seamless days and more time for yourself.”

The quest for personal time

Already, in 2016, a study by American Express Global Travel revealed that a desire for a better quality of life was a priority for business travellers. With the COVID-19 crisis and work entering into the private sphere, this trend has literally exploded. This has necessarily had an impact on how we approach business travel: the time of the road warriors is (definitively) over.

At the centre of the new lifestyles of working people, those who work in business travel have a role to play in developing innovative services and infrastructures to assist with these changes and to help to make them smooth. This represents a great opportunity to create value and to have an impact on our companies.

"Bonport is the premium provider of self-service tranquillity bubbles."

Bonport, tranquillity on demand

Welcome to the era of useful time! In the centre of towns and stations, Bonport Business Lounges are a solution to the difficulty encountered by professionals when they travel or when teleworking: finding a quiet and high quality place where they can connect to a conference call, organise a meeting or just concentrate, without having to go far away.

A self-service individual space

With its new kind of business lounges, with “bubbles” that can be booked for one or more people, Bonport is creating a new format of work space that is easy to access, high quality, user-friendly and offers 100% tranquillity.

Every day, professionals can install themselves in the bubble of their choice to work for a moment, before continuing with their day. What we offer: a place to connect to a telephone conference, hold a confidential meeting with a customer, make professional calls, and simply a quiet place to work.

Environmentally friendly business trips

Ideally located, the lounges make it possible to meet up directly at the station and therefore to avoid wasting time on any additional travel. Our clients say they save on average one hour thanks to their session, the time that they would have spent travelling if this service did not exist. An approach that benefits the users, their employer and the planet.

The experience

Bonport offers lounges that are both chic and informal with a stylish and friendly atmosphere. The ambience was created by a pair of specialist architects from the luxury segment of the hospitality industry. The atmosphere is resolutely upmarket and friendly.

The service is available in stations and is growing in town centres. Numerous new sites are planned so that we can offer a Bonport lounge in all busy and travelling areas.

www.bonport.com