staycation
steɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/
noun informal
a holiday spent in one’s home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.
Personally I am not a big fan of it, but staycations are fast becoming a popular choice for Singaporeans to get away from the rat race they face daily. Its a way to unwind at home, away from home.
While tourism figures have taken a slight dip in the past year, hotels and resorts can find solace in the fact that locals are turning to getaways right here in Singapore.
Suite Life With SuiteLyfe
Up-and-coming travel-tech startup SuiteLyfe wants a piece of the staycation pie. While the big boys like Expedia and co are drawing in people on the lookout to get the best deals out of advanced bookings, SuiteLyfe is aiming at crowd on the other end of the spectrum – that being, last minute bookings.
With an aim to provide staycation-ers an alternative urban lifestyle, they are partnering with a collection of local hotels, providing on-demand bookings anytime, anywhere.
The SuiteLyfe App
Currently available only on iOS, with an Android version in the works slated for an August release, the app is as easy to use as apps come by.
Upon installation, you will have an option to register an account by either linking up your Facebook account, or use an email address.
After getting your account, you will be greeted with a quick start guide of what you can do with the app.
Proceed and you will find yourself at the app’s main user interface.
Here, you will be able to navigate through the app through four main tabs, Gifts, Browse, Bookings, My Account.
Gifts, is where you can rack up additional discounts on top of whatever ongoing offers the hotels listed have. You can checkout SuiteLyfe’s social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram to see if they have dropped some codes for you to use.
Protip: They have one active promo code currently. Simple enter SUITELYFE20 to get $20 off your next booking, and it ends on 17th July.
Browse is where you can see the list of hotels available to be booked within the week. In case you weren’t paying attention earlier, the span of dates available to you for booking comes in 7 day intervals from the day you are using the app.
So, for example, if you wanted to book a stay tonight at one of the hotels, you’ll be able to make a reservation for any day until the Thursday the week after.
Once you have found your desired room, proceed to confirm your reservation and then make payment via credit and debit card.
Bookings is simply where you can review all the reservations of hotel rooms that you have made.
And lastly, My Accounts is where you would expect to make changes to your personal particulars, as well as access to app settings.
Also under Notification, you can find the very same bits of information you may have missed after creating an account at the start.
Highlights you need to take note of include – the ability to book rooms throughout the day until 5am (they are especially proud of this), and also, due to the nature of these bookings, you will only find out the type of room you got assigned to upon check-in.
Would I Use It?
Two words; Hell Yeah.
With events like Ultra in September and Zoukout at the end of the year, attendees will definitely find this app useful to hunt for the next nearest place to bunk in between the event days of these electronic music festivals, especially since the hotels adjacent to the event venues are often always fully booked.
I may no longer have to drag myself home with taxi rides at dawn, only to return in the evening on the same day.
For the rest of the world, having the ability to unwind almost instantly in the face of a long weekend, or planning surprise staycations for your loved one makes for an intriguing proposition.