Employees scattered like jigsaw puzzles, management split up, teams struggling to find each other: the changing world of work, accelerated by the pandemic, is turning companies' habits upside down. In some cases, companies have simply abandoned the idea of having offices and switched to full remote working. This is nothing new, but it is reflected in the growing need for meeting points to keep the company culture afloat, bind the teams together and move forward on new projects.
Founded in the wake of the confinements, two new players, Homanie and The Oasis House, have entered the seminar market with much the same idea: to offer beautiful homes for meetings at the grand vertaway from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Any resemblance to the success of Châteauform'Homanie and The Oasis House are both inspired by this reference point. But both Homanie and The Oasis House aim to embody 'home from home' in its purest form. In other words, with houses of limited size. can be fully privatised. With an average of 10 to 20 rooms, all with private bathrooms, and surrounded by immense green spaces, they offer complete privacy to participants, preventing them from having to mix with other groups.
And yet, while the core of their offer is similar, the positioning of these two players differs in many ways. While Oasis House plays on the lifestyle trend, Homanie goes straight for luxury. Marie Treppoz and Sophie Desmazières are both experienced entrepreneurs - one of them having worked for the Bertelsmann group and created the Bureauxlocaux website, the other having founded the Milleetunelistes website - and they both wanted to create Homanie. a collection of the most beautiful French serviced residences. Exceptional sites designed to welcome wealthy holidaymakers, but also professional events out of season, with seminars accounting for two-thirds of business today.
Initially, Homanie's offer was based on the founders' personal properties, exceptional derelict sites that had been completely transformed to accommodate exclusive stays. At the same time, the collection has grown with other owners who, through these seasonal rentals, can find a way to balance out costly restorations. " Initially, the collection consisted of around fifteen properties. Today, it has grown to it has sixty" says Sophie Desmazières, co-founder of the group.
With much of its offer concentrated in the South of France, Homanie offers, for example, a hamlet of five houses surrounded by lavender in the Drôme provençale - 17 rooms in all - or an estate on the edge of the Maures forest, near Saint-Tropez. The largest seminar venue offered by Homanie, with a total of 25 rooms and four houses, each with its own swimming pool.
But the collection also extends to regions other than Provence-Côte d'Azur. In particular near Parisin Giverny or Essonne, with a medieval château, or not far from Deauville with a 19th-century villa.eThere's also a hamlet of four chalets near Megève in the Alps. Or even abroadHomanie's members include some of the most beautiful residences in Cadaquès. " However, our priority is to consolidate our offering in France by moving into areas where we are not present, such as the South West, and why not Burgundy?" explains Sophie Desmazières.
In the medium term, the collection should include around a hundred homes, selected according to a set of specifications covering around a hundred criteria. These will naturally include meeting rooms with all the necessary connectivity. " Our homes must all have the same characteristics: perfect finishes, a remarkable location. We receive several requests a week to join Homanie, but not all the houses are of the quality we are looking for." says the other co-founder, Marie Treppoz.
Exceptional residences and cosy country houses
Homanie's customers include some CAC 40 companies, but mainly start-ups and SMEs. " Companies that often choose to be more modest when it comes to office space, while at the same time offering their employees idyllic interludes." says Marie Treppoz. Gathering in one or other of these houses frequented by the happy few is in fact a very special occasion. a real privilegeThis is in contrast to the 200,000 euros per week charged for some seasonal rentals. Businesses can rest assured, however, that the seminars offered by Homanie will be considerably cheaper, with packages costing around 450 euros per person per day on a full-board basis.
In comparison, the seminars at The Oasis House are a notch lower, at around €250 per day per person. " This will enable us to have a recurring presence, with teams coming not just for their major seminar, but several times a year." explains Camille Personnat, co-founder of the company with Guillaume Prigent. While start-ups were the first clientele, The Oasis House is now targeting the needs of team seminars for major groups, " companies that need to build cohesion and retain talent" says the entrepreneur. She has even come up with a new offer that should be launched soon: the privatisation of a house over several weeksThis allows companies to rotate their teams on a recurring basis.
Having started with a handful of partner houses, The Oasis House model is now evolving to include the ownership and renovation of large country houses. " We have bought two that will open in September, one between Etampes and Rambouillet and the other near Nemours. At the same time, two others are in the process of being acquired, in the Perche and Vexin regions." says Camille Personnat. Thanks to a recent round of fund-raising, The Oasis House now has sufficient funds to acquire a small number of locations in the first instance. " That's our goal for 2024" she admits.
As well as its size - between 10 and 20 bedrooms - a space that can be used as a living room or even the possibility of offering a swimming pool or tennis court, The Oasis House has other criteria to meet in its search for a home. accessibility of the house from Paris. "We are focusing initially on the Paris region, where 80% of demand for seminars is concentrated." says Camille Personnat. Before, most likely, going further afield, to Marseille, Lyon or Bordeaux for example, all destinations within easy reach by TGV.
