Guests left stranded after boutique hotel chain Sonder goes bankrupt,

Carol Tsai was just getting back to her Sonder hotel room after a long day of sightseeing in London when she read an email from the accommodation company informing her she needed to leave immediately.

“I literally freaked out,” said Tsai, who had been staying at the hotel for a few days and had paid for the stay in full.

“The first thing I said [was], ‘Where am I going to go now?’”

Guests at Sonder properties from New York to France say they were asked to leave their hotels abruptly after the company defaulted on payments, causing global chain Marriott to end a licensing deal it had with Sonder.

Sonder, which operated about 9,000 short-term rental and boutique hotel units in over 40 cities across the world — including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, where it was founded — announced on Monday it would be winding down operations and liquidating immediately.

“We are devastated to reach a point where a liquidation is the only viable path forward,” Janice Sears, Sonder’s interim CEO, said in the statement.

Marriott and Sonder announced a licensing agreement in 2024 that saw Sonder’s properties listed through Marriott’s platforms. But on Sunday, Marriott said that deal was done due to Sonder’s “default.”

Amina Balde said the situation has been equally jarring for employees as it has been for guests.

Balde, who has worked at the front desk at Sonder’s Apollon location in Old Montreal for two years, says she and her colleagues started seeing headlines about financial issues just days before Marriott ended the deal.

She said her supervisor received a phone call from their superiors on Sunday saying Sonder was bankrupt and they would effectively be losing their jobs, hours before she received any information from the company in writing — and around the same time guests started coming to the front desk with questions about the news.

“We’re just like, what? Is this a joke?” Balde said. “We were all completely shook.”

Balde says guests were frustrated but mostly understanding when they realized the employees were only just finding out about the closure, too. 

In Monday’s statement, Sears said the company was “deeply grateful” to their employees for their dedication over the years.

“Due to their passion and effort, Sonder spent the last decade redefining hospitality with remarkable and accessible guest stay experiences,” Sears said.

Financial constraints at Sonder

Sonder was founded in Montreal in 2012 before the company’s headquarters moved to the U.S. The company pitched itself as something between a traditional hotel and a short-term rental company like Airbnb, combining the comfort of more apartment-like spaces with the reliability of hotel-like booking.

Sonder had reportedly…