Finally, we met again with a lot of enthusiasm
The Coworking Spain Conference was finally held in Valencia this past April in on-site format. Unfortunately, the last edition we could attend was four years ago!
For those new to the sector, this is one of Spain’s important annual Coworking events. A meeting brings together some 200 professionals from the national market; operators, real estate agents, suppliers, entrepreneurs and experts in coworking development like us.
For those of us who have been there for a few years and a few conferences, it is an opportunity to meet again, update our business, strengthen relationships and meet new operators and suppliers.
As if it were yesterday, I still remember the 2015 edition also held in Valencia. Since then, the sector has grown tremendously, and it has largely been thanks to events like this one that acts as a forum or catalyst for knowledge, allowing attendees themselves to learn best practices in the industry and share their own experiences with the rest of the attendees.
In terms of content, I enjoyed the presentations by Aticco Living, The Student Hotel, Nexudus and The Challenges of Coworking. Here is a summary of three talks that can help you improve the management of your coworking space or at least identify those aspects that are not working well in the business.
Size, memberships, prices and demand of coworking spaces
Coworking Spain annually analyses the country’s coworking sector in terms of the number of spaces, total m2, industry value, prices, market leaders, and other KPIs that define the national industry. You can download all the studies carried out from 2010 to today here.
The study analyses 1,483 active spaces on the platform, which 447 are in Barcelona, 349 in Madrid and 688 in the rest of the Spanish provinces. Among the rest of the provinces, Valencia, Malaga and Seville have the highest number of spaces.
The average size of the spaces is currently 534 m2, which is growing year after year, but we have not yet reached the European average, which is over 1,000 m2. In the rest of Europe, spaces are more profitable because with a larger size comes higher profitability.
In terms of rates, the average price of a fixed table is €188. In Madrid, it is €214, in Barcelona €200, and the rest of the provinces €171. The study doesn’t consider private office prices; however, according to our research, the price per person in cities such Barcelona or Madrid is between €250 and €350; in the rest of the provinces, it is €200.
There is more demand for dedicated desks than hot desks, but since 2021 the need for hot desks has been growing exponentially due to the growth of remote work caused by the pandemic. As for private offices, the study does not talk about it; we can say that it is the most demanded product and the one that provides more income and stability in the income statement. In addition, hot desks will provide you with customer rotation to enrich your community or ecosystem.
According to the study, since September 2021, the demand for space requests has become active again, and it seems that we are returning to the normality enjoyed before the pandemic when occupancies were between 85% and 95%.
Booking patterns in meeting rooms
Nexudus, the management software for coworking spaces, in its report Coworking Insights presents the results obtained from the analysis, no more and no less, of 3.5 Million registrations received in the period 2016-2021, in 90 countries within its platform. The study presented at the conference focuses on Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom; we will highlight the Spanish market.
The study analyses user behaviour regarding the use of meeting rooms; this data helps you design pricing and promotions for different memberships or customer profiles, launch offers at off-peak times or months, and even find out which meeting rooms are most in-demand in terms of user capacity.
The study shows that the most popular times of the day in a coworking space are 10 am, 9 am, 11 am, 12 pm and 16 pm, in order of preference.
It also tells us that bookings starting between 8 and 10 am. are those with the highest average duration of the day, with values ranging from 120 to 140 minutes.
The meeting rooms most demanded are those with a capacity of between 1 – 9 users; they account for around 80% of the total bookings of the space. The most requested meeting room has a capacity of 4-5 users. Rooms with 22 or more users account for 8% of the total bookings.
External bookings provide more revenue than member bookings, precisely 64% more. Among the members, the users who make the most paid bookings are flex table users and private offices.
The price of an external booking in small spaces is €25/hour, while it can be as high as €50/hour in larger spaces.
The price of a member booking varies according to the membership; for example, dedicated desk and virtual memberships are €20/hour and are the highest-priced, private office is €15/hour, with hot desk being the cheapest at €12.5/hour.
Common challenges faced by coworking spaces
Coworkies is a platform where a coworking space can post a job offer. In addition, they have published a book “Around The World in 250 Coworking Spaces,” where they interviewed 250 operators from all over the world. At the Coworking Spain Conference, they shared with us the conclusions of the interviews, i.e. where they identified the most common difficulties of these 250 operators:
According to the study, 60% of the spaces agree that the biggest problem is attracting new members. HWL can help you design a plan to attract potential customers. For now, we recommend you to take a look at the blog post Your User’s Journey where we describe the whole process that the potential user goes through from the moment they contact you to request information, through conversion, retention and loyalty, until they leave as a customer. Within this process, you have to carry out a Social Media Marketing Plan to “generate leads” through different sales channels such as Google and Social Media Ads, as well as other sales channels such as coworking platforms, events, brokers, etc.
So now you know, if you need help in recruiting members or want to improve any other aspect of your coworking company’s performance, contact us; HWL can help you.
Cover image: Coworking Spain Conference 2022.
This article has been written by Vanessa Sans, director and consultant at Happy Working Lab.
