Welcome back. Experience chiefs, CX designers and thought leaders gathered this week for The Wall Street Journal’s first Experience Management Forum. Disappearing WhatsApp messages are here to stay. And hotels and tour operators are catering to pods of friends and family that want to take their bubbles on the road. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the corporate world upside down, including the experiences they’re able to provide their customers and workers, executives said at the Journal’s first Experience Management Forum on Monday.

Confronted with a plunge in normal business and leisure travel, for example, Marriott introduced more flexible booking options such as Day Pass, which lets guests check in to work from the hotel.

Peggy Fang Roe, Marriott’s global officer for customer experience, loyalty and new ventures, said the company developed the offerings in three months, about three times as quickly as usual.

“We’ve broken all the rules about check in and check out,” she added. “You can come and check in at 6 a.m. and check out at 6 p.m.”

Companies have also strived to help employees however possible during the crisis—including by providing job security where it’s possible.

“The organization has made a firm commitment around not furloughing any caregivers,” said Adrienne Boissy, chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

WeWork is developing what it calls “the conference room of the future,” where holographic technology will enable the kind of face-to-face interactions people took for granted before the pandemic.

People used Zoom and used videoconferencing in the pre-Covid era, but there were always certain meetings we had to get out of our offices and travel for, Hamid Hashemi, chief product and experience officer at WeWork, said at the Experience Management Forum. Now WeWork is trying to bring back some of that experience, he said.

“We’re creating an office space that will basically give you all those interactions you would have if you were sitting face to face,” Mr. Hashemi said.

“For us the foundation has been and will be office work,” he added.

Facebook’s WhatsApp has introduced a setting that automatically deletes messages after seven days, a move aimed at encouraging users to feel comfortable chatting in confidence, Katie Deighton writes for the Experience Report.

The company partly wants to make chats on the platform feel more like face-to-face conversations than imperishable emails or texts do, according to Zafir Khan, product manager at WhatsApp. He hopes the feature will encourage more people to host personal conversations on the platform, confident that their messages won’t come back to haunt them.

But it’s not quite send-it-and-forget-it: WhatsApp also believes the deletion period of seven days, instead of other ephemeral services’ instant erasures, gives its experience an advantage. It’s short enough to feel secure, WhatsApp says, but long enough to let users save useful information.

The feature may also help Facebook boost engagement on WhatsApp, according to Miguel Alvarez, global chief technology officer of digital agency AnalogFolk Ltd.

“Data and privacy are clearly important in this,” Mr. Alvarez said, “but really it almost forces users to keep a conversation ongoing.”

Related: WhatsApp is adding a button on business pages that will link to product catalogs. [Engadget]

Hotels and tour operators looking to fill vacant rooms during the pandemic are offering packages tailored to families and friends traveling as pods—but seeking distance from other guests.

Among the flurry of new promotions is the quarantine-inspired “Intimate Group Escape” package offered by the upscale Condado Vanderbilt in San Juan, P.R., Debra Kamin reports for the Journal.

Up to 18 cohorts can take over the 9-room presidential suite ($10,800 for the first night, $5,950 for subsequent nights). Also included: breakfast, four poolside cabanas and a margarita mixology class. An additional $3,000 buys exclusive access to the spa for a day and treatments for up to seven people.

Philadelphia’s ritzy Rittenhouse Hotel launched a similar travel-in-a-bubble package. There, the Park Suite Retreat offering gives 10 guests free rein of the hotel’s 5-room park suite floor, with its own private dining room. For $15,000 a night, the pod people can also reserve the spa, gym and sun deck.

Companies are offering creative solutions to worker burnout during the pandemic. [WSJ] 

UPS is loosening its guidelines on employee appearance, including lifting a longstanding ban on facial hair. [WSJ] 

Behind the polarizing design of the Playstation 5. [Fast Company] 

McDonald’s hopes its planned loyalty program will play a big part in making its drive-through experience better. [Wired]

Ulta Beauty plans to open shops inside more than 100 Target stores starting next year. [WSJ]

Video: How a deal between Walmart and TikTok could change online shopping in the U.S. [WSJ]