Extensive travelling and flying from one global business centre to another was part of Mohannad Zikra’s life for a decade. The former high-flying corporate executive, who started his career with Ericsson and rose in ranks to become its sales director in Canada, stayed at plenty of hotels around the world over a decade. It’s an experience he did not enjoy.
“I was gone for 320 days of a year,” Mr Zikra says. “When I leave, whether for a week or a month, I was always stuck at these hotels and when I came back home to Canada, my friends would say ‘man you are living the dream, must be great to travel’, but I absolutely hated that experience.”
After moving on from Ericson in 2015, he joined UXP Systems, a tech start-up in Toronto as director of sales, again travelling extensively. However, instead of the corporate-allocated, high-end hotels, this time he chose cheaper options including Airbnb, which was gaining popularity in North America.
It was a much better experience,…