Kukun transforms traditional hotels into original stays

There is an experienced entrepreneur who has known the PropTech sector for more than 20 years, even before he was known under this name. We are talking about Heberto Taracena, who was the founder of metroscubicos.com, and today is launching Kukun.

The new venture is a "neo-hotel" brand in Latin America. It is a new concept, which aims to transform hospitality in the region through the use of technology and culturally immersive design.

Kukun is now a reality thanks to the work of Taracena and his partners Ismael Diakite and David Daniels. It was in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that these entrepreneurs saw extraordinary changes in traveler behavior. Ismael and David already had a couple of definite ideas about staycation models; and after many talks, they came up with a transformative concept that could change the hotel industry as we know it today.

How to make the tourist, business traveler, young person, digital nomad or family arrive at a Kukun and have a point of connection with the culture, the environment and the country they are visiting? "What we want is for Kukun to be an experience that visitors have never lived before and that is part of the design," explains the CEO and co-founder of Kukun.

The design has to be a local setting, with cultural elements from the neighborhood, city or region where the physical spaces are located. "This forces us to connect with different members of the communities for the adequacy of the property. We look for handicrafts, folk art masters, contemporary furniture, etc.". So, each apartment transformed into a Kukun, has to be a cultural experience, deeply original.

The business model

The project has grown very fast. They went from zero properties to almost 120 in an experimental period that has been the first year of operations. Kukun was founded in April 2021.

Currently they only have locations in Mexico City in the Condesa, Roma, Reforma Avenue and Polanco neighborhoods. But they are already in talks with several funds for an important round of investment, and with this they will have around 1,000 properties under management by the end of 2023. This would practically give them a hotel chain.

But the plans do not stop here; the entrepreneurs have an extremely aggressive project to position themselves in more cities and countries not only in Mexico, but also in Latin America. "We create experiences as we believe they have never been created," says Heberto. What this entrepreneur and his partners do is to look for properties where an interpretation of the city or the neighborhood can be made with a certain luxury, which allows maximizing the client's experience in the city. These properties are subleased on short-term stays on platforms such as kindandcoe, Airbnb and Booking.

There are places where they are not interested in being. You're not going to find a Kukun next to an airport, for example," explains Heberto. What they are looking for is to create deep bonds between the visitor and the city. There are already more than 40 collaborators at Kukun, who have the firm purpose of operating in the best possible way, in the most functional and perfect way, making the best of the hotel business, but combining technological elements, and that is part of the innovation.

A market willing to be reinterpreted

Hospitality is a very old business, but Kukun's founders believe it needs to be rethought in a different way. To achieve this, design and technology can play an extraordinary role that transforms the brand into a space of cultural expansion, not just a dorm room, Airbnb or traditional hotel in a small room, but a kind of natural link between the culture of a place and the person staying.

"The PropTech market is real, it's not fictitious. Here is a sector that requires deep transformations in processes and experiences. In the case of short-term stays alone, the size of the market in Latin America exceeds US$40 billion; and it is a market that is willing to be reinterpreted," comments Heberto.

Kukun's CEO emphasizes that it is a real market, which does not require a deep evangelization to teach best practices or changes in brand design; what is needed is an impeccable operation and a different conceptualization to offer a different value proposition. There are many areas where the real estate sector requires technology to improve products and user experiences. It is a giant market full of opportunities. In Mexico, the number of mortgages, remodels, tourists, monthly rentals, etc., is growing all the time.