The Conversation
Explains McCrow: “They’re profitable for the operator as they can put on staff levels much lower than hotels with labour-intensive facilities such as restaurants. They have big growth potential and I’m happy to stay in it.” It’s a far cry from 30 years ago when McCrow
left the property world, because it had collapsed around him, to join Dev Anand in Expotel’s burgeoning apartment department. Companies were finding solutions, maybe in
old buildings rented out as holiday lets, or they were being stung in hotels that had created apartments from two former hotel bedrooms and charging normal nightly hotel rates, multiplied by the number of nights. Relocation agents, meanwhile, were struggling to find long-stay apartment solutions. “That’s where we started; it
was a pretty mixed bag,” recalls McCrow. They might have had the market to themselves but nor did they have much inventory. The only standard was the British Tourist Authority’s key symbol. And forget live availability; this was pre-internet and McCrow would DHL over a hard copy of his directory every six to eight weeks to his network of partners round the world, listing fax numbers as contact points. Property developers were busy converting
the logistics, and its own maintenance teams so that the TV does get fixed the same day if it goes on the blink. “It’s not easy, that’s why we have our own maintenance team,” he explains. His big focus is the arrival. Guests are given
“We were servicing everybody’s pain in the neck stuff, that’s what we called it. Travel agents – as they were called – didn’t want to know the sector”
a mobile number as a contact point and a welcome pack with basic provisions. After that, McCrow and his team generally don’t hear much from them again until departure. Price used to characterise the hotel versus apartment argument for many years – hotels still being the best option for stays of under one week – but McCrow believes it’s finally moved on from there. “An apartment is still price effective but I believe the real benefit is the space and freedom to have friends round and not have to perch on the end of a bed, it’s a lifestyle thing which kicks in after a period. “It also depends on who pays expenses bill too. Guests can visit the local supermarket and buy breakfast items or feed their children from their own kitchen rather than at the hotel restaurant,” says McCrow. Additional space is a further selling point. Compare a typical 200ft2 hotel bedroom to a one- bed apartment spanning around 500ft2 or a corporate housing
unit of some 500 to 800ft2. McCrow's 55 staff have the same challenge
many of their buildings into apartment units so by the early Nineties McCrow enlisted the help of Egon Ronay’s Hotel & Restaurant Guides to start grading them, around the same time as he bought out Expotel’s apartment service from the receivers. “We were servicing everybody’s pain in the
neck stuff, that’s what we called it. Travel agents – as they were then called – didn’t want to know the sector,“ he says, which was further compli- cated by the plethora of different models that existed in continental Europe. To bring some conformity into the marketplace McCrow set up a GSA network so he could refer properties worldwide. “Our Canadian partner advised us to take residential properties and upgrade them, taking them on a long lease, and that was our answer,” he says. Take a look at his reservation screen in his
Wimbledon offices today and all you see is large blocks of multiple month bookings, with an average stay of 122 nights. His portfolio of 300 corporate housing units in the UK, plus more in Lisbon and Madrid, is basically residential housing, although this segment is referred to as corporate housing. The Apartment Service organises the personal inspections in a black cab, connects the broad- band, cleans the unit – providing a laundry service from its own laundry – and furnishes it from its own warehouse collection. The company also owns five big vans to sort out all
and know to recommend a Staybridge Suite if the customer is on their own, an Ascott apartment if the customer wants more of a clubby feel, and so on. He works tirelessly for the industry in his pursuit of achieving more clarity for the sector. For the last few years he’s produced at his own cost an industry report* every 18 months to track changes and developments and from which he quotes a range of impressive statistics that underline the sector’s growth. The Far East is the next big area of growth, he predicts. McCrow also managed to find time to organise ASAP's first ever conference last year and he’s taken on something of the mantle of an apartment inspector, in tackling his real bête noir, quality control. “It would be nice to make sense out of something that’s so confusing and bring some consistency to it,” he concludes. Any lurking frustrations at his lack of progress are taken out at sea, where he spends as much time as possible deep-sea fishing, usually for marlin. The wooden Buddha overlooking his desk – missing its fishing rod – serves as a daily reminder of the more meditative pastimes that are a mere flight away from the hustle and bustle of life as an apartment provider.
*The Global Serviced Apartments Industry Report 2011 is available from this month free of charge, on request.
CHARLES McCROW MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE APARTMENT SERVICE
Charles McCrow first started working on the extended stay market in the 80s and joined Expotel Hotel Reservations Ltd to develop their fledgling extended stay business. He has been at the
helm of The Apartment Service ever since the management buy-out in 1992 and has overseen its growth from a small department of just a few people to the medium size company it is today. He is a long-standing protagonist of the sector, working to increase its awareness though various different initiatives over the years such as bringing the corporate housing concept to the UK in the 1990s, establishing CAS (Complete Accommo- dation Solutions) in conjunction with European destination service providers, and also in quality grading. He is also Treasurer
and a Director of the UK’s Association of Serviced Apartment Providers as well as a member of the Corporate Housing Providers Association in the USA where the largest share of this now global industry can be found.
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