Co-living vs hotels is no longer a theoretical debate – it’s a revenue leak. Across Southeast Asia, co-living spaces are quietly pulling away the guests you need the most: digital nomads, remote workers, freelancers, and long-stay professionals who used to anchor your base occupancy and F&B revenue.
If you run a hotel in Bali or Indonesia and still treat long stays as “a slightly discounted OTA rate,” you are already behind. Co-living vs hotels is becoming a structural shift in how people choose where to live and work for 1–12 months at a time.
This article breaks down why co-living is winning, why co-living vs hotels is such an unfair fight right now, and how hotels can respond with a hybrid strategy that protects ADR, loyalty, and NOI.
1. What Co-Living Really Is (And Why It Scales Faster Than Hotels)
At its core, co-living is a hybrid between serviced apartments, student housing, and a social club:
- Private, hotel-like rooms or micro-apartments
- Shared kitchens, lounges, coworking spaces, laundry, and gyms
- Built-in social programming – events, wellness, workshops
- All-inclusive weekly or monthly pricing, with flexible contracts
Globally, the co-living market was valued at around USD 7.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach over USD 16 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. Asia-Pacific already accounts for a major share of this growth, with other studies projecting co-living could surpass USD 10 billion by 2030 on the back of affordability and flexibility – see, for example, this 2024–2030 co-living market analysis and Spherical Insights’ global co-living forecast.
In that context, co-living vs hotels is a mismatch: one model is built for long-stay life, the other still behaves like a short-stay product that occasionally tolerates a monthly rate.
2. Who Is Actually Winning the Co-Living vs Hotels Battle?
You can see the direction of travel by looking at where capital is going:
- Habyt, one of the world’s largest flexible housing providers, grew from 5,000 units in 18 cities to around 30,000 units across 50+ cities on three continents, as highlighted in its Series C funding announcement and subsequent portfolio update.
- The Ascott Limited has publicly stated its target to sign 150 properties with over 30,000 units under its lyf co-living brand by 2030, as reported by HospitalityNet and reiterated in The Business Times’ coverage.
At the same time, the extended-stay hotel segment is attracting its own capital. The global extended-stay hotel market is projected to grow from about USD 60–61 billion in 2024 to over USD 140 billion by 2032, according to Polaris Market Research. Extended-stay brands have also outperformed many traditional segments in RevPAR growth over the last decade, as outlined in CBRE’s 2024 Hotel Brand Performance report.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: in the co-living vs hotels equation, the long-stay guest increasingly sees co-living as the default, and hotels as the exception.
According to Zenith Hospitality Global’s 2025 analysis of long-stay demand in Indonesia, hybrid co-living products can secure 4–6 month average length of stay at stable ADR, while many hotels still fight for 7–10 night bookings with constant discounting.
3. A Real Case: How a Bali Hotel Lost Its Long-Stay Core
To make this tangible, here’s a simplified snapshot from a real review we conducted.
In 2024, a 120-key midscale hotel near one of Bali’s beach “hotspots” was struggling. Occupancy was decent on weekends, weak midweek, and completely volatile in shoulder seasons. Long-stay guests (30+ nights) made up less than 5% of room nights.
Two kilometres away, a modest co-living complex with fewer than 60 units was running:
- Average stays of 3–5 months
- Near-stable occupancy year-round
- A waitlist of remote workers willing to pay in foreign currency
When we mapped the co-living vs hotels experience side by side, it was brutal:
- The hotel offered a slightly larger room, a pool, and breakfast.
- The co-living property offered a usable kitchen, coworking, events, WhatsApp community, and all-inclusive monthly pricing.
The long-stay guest didn’t even compare star ratings. They compared “Can I live my life here for six months without friction?” – and co-living won.
4. Why Co-Living vs Hotels Matters So Much in Bali and Indonesia
Indonesia is quietly restructuring its visa and regulatory environment around long-stay, higher-value visitors.
Since 2024, remote professionals can apply for the E33G Remote Worker Visa, which allows them to legally live in Indonesia for up to a year while working for employers outside the country. Details are available both on the official immigration portal and via specialist explainers such as Bali.com’s Remote Worker KITAS overview and Legal Indonesia’s E33G breakdown.
For places like Bali, that means:
- Guests who can legally stay 6–24 months
- Income often earned in USD/EUR/SGD
- A higher propensity to spend on wellness, F&B, and experiences
For broader context on how Bali is already under pressure from unmanaged tourism flows, see Zenith’s article on managing destination overcrowding in Bali. It shows how demand is shifting from pure holiday travel toward longer, purpose-driven stays — exactly the segment co-living is targeting.
If co-living vs hotels becomes “co-living wins by default, hotels are for weekenders,” you lose:
- Stable base occupancy
- Program revenue (gym, spa, wellness, F&B) from residents
- Direct relationships with exactly the kind of long-stay guest you want in your ecosystem
Embedded CTA #1:
If you operate a hotel in Bali or Indonesia and want a hard diagnostic on your long-stay potential, this is where Zenith starts: a location + product + pricing audit tailored to co-living vs hotels in your micro-market.
5. Where Co-Living vs Hotels Is an Unfair Fight (Today)
Let’s be blunt. Long-stay guests don’t want to live in a normal hotel room for three months. Here’s why co-living vs hotels is structurally unbalanced – and what that means:
5.1 Product: Hotels Design for Nights, Co-Living for Months
Hotels are optimised for short-term comfort:
- No real kitchen or communal cooking space
- A desk squeezed beside the bed
- Lobbies and bars designed for short interactions, not daily work
Co-living designs for daily life:
- Private rooms plus shared kitchens, coworking, laundry, gym
- Layouts tuned for remote work, calls, online meetings
- Spaces designed for “I live here”, not “I pass through”
In a co-living vs hotels decision, the guest choosing 3–6 months will always favour the place where daily life is easier, not just sleep more comfortable.
5.2 Pricing: Hotels Sell Nights, Co-Living Sells Months
Hotels:
- Quote nightly rates, then layer taxes and add-ons
- Offer opaque discounts and corporate deals
- Still measure success in RevPAR per night
Co-living:
- Sells all-inclusive monthly or 3–6 month packages
- Includes Wi-Fi, utilities, cleaning, often laundry and events
- Talks in total cost of living, not nightly sticker price
For a digital nomad paying their own way, cost certainty beats a slightly nicer room. In the co-living vs hotels comparison, hotels look like friction.
For a deeper breakdown of how rate structures create or destroy trust, you can cross-link to Zenith’s perspective on rate integrity and ROI in the article “The ROI Lie: Deconstructing Hospitality ROI in Southeast Asia” here:
https://zenith-hospitality.com/hospitality-roi-in-southeast-asia/
5.3 Community: Hotels Sell Service, Co-Living Sells Belonging
Hotels mostly provide transactional hospitality: check-in, housekeeping, breakfast, maybe a welcome drink. The guest is served, but rarely woven into a community.
Co-living invests specifically into social infrastructure:
- Community managers whose job is to connect people
- Weekly events, classes, and excursions
- Shared digital groups where residents collaborate and support each other
For someone staying 3–12 months, loneliness is a core risk. Co-living vs hotels, community vs isolation – that’s often the real decision being made.
5.4 Flexibility & Visas: Co-Living Aligns with Remote-Worker Reality
Co-living contracts:
- Are easy to start for a month and extend
- Require minimal bureaucracy
- Often come with soft guidance on visas, tax, and local basics
Traditional hotels still push:
- Nightly pricing with “long-stay discounts”
- Limited monthly offers that feel bolted on
- Little structural support for people truly basing themselves in-country
With visas like Indonesia’s E33G, co-living vs hotels is shaped by who makes a 12-month life easiest. Co-living usually does.
5.5 Cost Structure: Co-Living Can Run Leaner
Co-living products generally run:
- Lower staffing per unit (more self-service, more automation)
- Fewer daily turnovers = lower cleaning and linen costs
- Standardised fit-out and simpler FFE
Hotels drag legacy complexity: 24/7 front office, concierge, costly F&B outlets, over-specified room product. In a co-living vs hotels P&L comparison, co-living often delivers more stable margins on lower volatility. You can see similar logic in how investors favour extended-stay formats in CBRE’s hotel brand performance analysis and extended-stay growth forecasts.
6. Strategic Response: How Hotels Can Compete (Without Pretending to Be Co-Living)
The solution is not to suddenly rebrand your property as a co-living startup. The smart move is to build a hybrid long-stay layer inside your existing asset.
6.1 Convert Part of Your Inventory into Long-Stay “Residency” Product
- Dedicate one wing or several floors to long-stay suites.
- Add kitchenettes or shared floor kitchens, proper wardrobes, and ergonomic work setups.
- Design the floor plan around how someone will live for 3–12 months, not how a weekend guest behaves.
Name and position it clearly: this is your co-living vs hotels bridge product – a residence inside a hotel, not just “rooms with a discount”.
6.2 Build a Community Layer, Not Just a Guest Database
- Appoint a community host who curates events, intros, and communication.
- Host at least one weekly social touchpoint (dinner, skills night, wellness session).
- Create a simple digital group (WhatsApp/Discord/Slack) where residents and long-stay guests connect.
Make it impossible for someone to say, “I stayed there for six months and never met anyone.”
Embedded CTA #2:
Zenith designs full community playbooks for hotels – programming calendars, staffing roles, and tone-of-voice – so community is operational, not just aspirational.
6.3 Fix Your Long-Stay Pricing Logic
- Build all-inclusive monthly offers that include Wi-Fi, utilities, gym/co-working access, and cleaning.
- Offer tiered housekeeping (e.g. weekly vs twice weekly) to control costs and match budgets.
- Use these packages to stabilise off-season occupancy, not as last-minute dumping grounds.
Co-living vs hotels is often decided at the spreadsheet level: if your monthly rate looks like a guessed discount, you lose. For a more detailed financial lens on Southeast Asia, you can again point readers to “The ROI Lie: Deconstructing Hospitality ROI in Southeast Asia” here:
https://zenith-hospitality.com/hospitality-roi-in-southeast-asia/
6.4 Partner Instead of Reinventing Everything
You don’t have to become a co-living operator overnight:
- Partner with coworking brands, wellness studios, or community platforms to animate your spaces.
- Co-develop adjacent land or underused wings with a co-living/serviced-apartment specialist.
Zenith’s view: in many Indonesian assets, the smartest move in the co-living vs hotels conversation is a JV or operating partnership, not a DIY side project. For an example of how we structure hybrid development + operations in a destination context, see the Lombok case study:
https://zenith-hospitality.com/lombok-mandalika-a-6-pillar-strategy-for-sustainable-tourism-growth/
6.5 Invest Properly in Remote-Work Infrastructure
- Redundant high-speed internet with genuine QoS
- Coworking zones, call booths, and quiet study areas
- App-based booking for meeting rooms and facilities
Without this, you’re not in a co-living vs hotels contest; you’re just a nicer version of an old city hotel from 2005.
6.6 Align with Wellness and Sustainability Expectations
Co-living brands sell a narrative: conscious, communal, wellness-forward living. Hotels must show – not just claim – equivalent intent:
- Visible energy and waste systems, not just a “green card” in the bathroom
- Real wellness infrastructure: gym, movement spaces, mental health-friendly design
- Outdoor and semi-outdoor areas where people can work, train, and decompress
For a deeper dive on how wellness and longevity investment can transform asset performance in Bali, you can internally link to:
https://zenith-hospitality.com/biohacking-wellness-investment-bali/
Embedded CTA #3:
Zenith can help you re-architect your asset so that, in any co-living vs hotels comparison, your property wins on sleep, work, wellness, and community – not just on room quality.
Key Takeaways: Co-Living vs Hotels in One Glance
- Co-living vs hotels is not a trend piece – it’s a structural shift backed by institutional capital and double-digit market growth, as seen in multiple co-living market reports and recent global forecasts.
- Co-living products are winning long-stay guests because they align with how people live, work, and socialise for months at a time.
- Visas like Indonesia’s E33G make 1–2 year stays normal, not exceptional – and co-living is ready to capture that demand, as outlined on Indonesia’s immigration site.
- The winning play is hybrid: residency-style inventory, real community design, inclusive long-stay pricing, and remote-work-ready infrastructure.
- Owners who move now can protect long-stay demand and reposition their hotels as modern living clubs, not just transient accommodations.
FAQ: Co-Living vs Hotels
1. Is co-living really a long-term threat to hotels?
Yes. For stays longer than about two weeks, co-living competes directly with hotels and serviced apartments and is often better aligned with long-term living needs.
2. Can an independent hotel realistically compete with co-living brands?
Yes – especially in Bali and Indonesia. Independents can convert wings, build community, and partner with specialists faster than big chains.
3. Do we need a separate co-living brand to respond?
Not necessarily. Many hotels can build a sub-brand or residency product inside the existing hotel, then expand later if demand validates it.
4. How important are visas like Indonesia’s E33G in this shift?
Critical. Remote-worker visas normalise one- to two-year stays, which makes co-living vs hotels a question of who can support a long-term life best, not just who has the nicest room.
5. What is the first practical step for a hotel in Bali or Indonesia?
Start with an asset diagnostic: identify a wing or floor that can become a hybrid long-stay product with coworking and community. Test for 6–12 months with clear KPIs.
CTA: Ready to Stress-Test Your Asset Against the Co-Living Wave?
If you’re an owner, developer, or GM in Indonesia and you feel co-living creeping into your market, you’re not paranoid – you’re early.
Zenith Hospitality Global works precisely at this intersection of co-living vs hotels:
- We audit micro-markets and assets for long-stay potential
- We design hybrid long-stay and co-living layers inside existing hotels
- We build operational, financial, and community systems that protect NOI, not just occupancy
If you want your property to be on the right side of the co-living vs hotels shift, not the losing side, this is the moment to redesign – not after your long-stay guests have already moved out.
👉 Talk to Zenith about your project
About the Author
André Priebs is the CEO & Co-Founder of Zenith Hospitality Global, a Bali-based consulting and management firm focused on performance-driven hotels, villas, and wellness projects across Indonesia and Southeast Asia. With more than 30 years of leadership experience in Europe and Asia, André has led large-scale pre-openings, turnarounds, and asset repositionings for luxury and upper-upscale properties.
His work centres on operational architecture, ROI integrity, and guest journey design – helping owners and developers turn complex hospitality assets into disciplined, long-term performers.
Connect with André on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/andre-priebs
