INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
can find a cool boutique hotel that caters to a lot of different price points, as well as surround yourself with people that will help you
up campuses geared toward fitting those niches across Central America
What started as originally just a real estate company has now turned into a venture-funded startup called Selina, which goes around the
world creating a different kind of hotel product out of renovated older properties
Instead of just renting out a room in an Airbnb or paying for a hotel room in a boutique hotel, or some co-working space, Selina aims to be
a more streamlined way to get that mixture of a community experience, a boutique hotel feel, and the ease of getting a consistent experience
across multiple different properties
What was different about us and what we were telling the world is we were doing something different in the hospitality world
But Selina still does serve different price points, from the bunk room set-up at a common hostel for under $30 a night to a more traditional
It plans to open a new location in Miami this year as it starts to expand beyond Central America, looking to structure it around frequent
travelers looking to meet other like-minded individuals that might be looking to either explore a new area or find a co-working spot while
traveling.Selina started in Central America and has since begun expanding throughout those countries, and the company hopes to begin
expanding into the United States and Europe this year as it continues to make inroads into Latin America
Selina looks to hire people that have the specific experience working with those regions when it comes to taxes and regulations, and one of
the benefits it has is that it is usually repurposing old real estate
the scale we were projecting
The company hopes to be able to operate efficiently with a hospitality staff of between 30 or 40, though that could vary from property to
property depending on the location
But while Airbnb might be centered around that individual experience, Rojas said it wants to use data from potential visitors to improve the
more community-oriented experience at Selina
similar experience through a platform-oriented approach
startup and be able to show investors that its ability to rapidly create new properties is what will make it be successful.
