Coworking operators may already have another revenue stream sitting inside their existing spaces: meeting rooms.
Data from Cobot, a coworking management software platform, shows that meeting rooms across the German coworking spaces in its dataset were used for about 12% of available capacity, based on an eight-hour day and five-day week. External bookings made through Cobot’s booking tools accounted for just 0.6% of that utilization.
The data covers spaces both in and outside German cities with more than 100,000 residents, with similar patterns across locations. Cobot said its data from other European markets shows comparable trends.
Outside Customers Aren’t Finding The Rooms
The gap is partly a visibility problem. Members already know what a coworking space offers, while an outside customer searching for a meeting room may never encounter it.
Cobot points to more detailed listings, better photos and practical information about equipment, catering and other services as ways operators can make their meeting rooms easier to evaluate. Listing rooms on external discovery channels can also put them in front of customers who are not already familiar with the space.
Booking Friction Can Cost Operators Sales
The booking process is another potential barrier. External customers may still have to contact a coworking team, explain their requirements and wait for staff to coordinate the reservation.
A more transactional process could allow customers to see pricing and availability, understand what is included and book directly, with additional arrangements handled afterward.
Pricing may also leave money on the table. In Cobot’s German data, the median external meeting room price in cities was about 1.5 times the member rate, while the top 10% of spaces charged more than twice the member price.
Rooms with higher external markups were also substantially more popular with members and outside customers. The data does not show that higher prices caused greater demand, but it suggests popular rooms can command a premium.
External Bookings Have Room To Grow
Operators may worry that opening meeting rooms to outsiders could reduce availability for members. The current utilization data suggests there is considerable capacity before that becomes a major issue.
Cobot also found that spaces with meeting rooms that were popular among members tended to attract more external bookings.
For operators looking for additional revenue, the opportunity may therefore be less about adding new products and more about selling existing meeting room capacity to a much larger pool of customers.
