Serviced apartments
Pictured: Above: Deep Blue Apartments; ➔ Below: SilverDoor Apartments, BridgeStreet
have a large estate or they want to make last-minute sales or fill gaps in occupancy. “Even then, the kind of short-stay bookings the GDS deliver are at rates the operator would not want to extend on a regular basis. Their worry is that clients will get into the habit of using apartments for five nights or less,” the report says. Adam Knights, group sales director for
travel management company ATPI, agrees that GDS do not lend themselves to serviced apartments: “A buyer can negotiate a better price for a one-month stay than for three or four days and the GDS are not sophisticated enough to show that,” he says, adding that serviced apartment providers contribute to the problem. “They are not mature enough in the way they position their product.” However, Knights also points out that GDS
have had to respond to airlines charging for ancillaries and they will also respond to the apartment industry’s requirements. The Global Serviced Apartments Industry
Report concludes: “Ironically, distribution actually distinguishes the apartment sector from the rest of travel because the agent is the ideal distribution mechanism. We know what is available, and where, because we are specialists.” Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
The principle is entirely correct, however, says consultant to the hotel industry Melvin Gold: “It is not an entirely independent report but apartments do vary considerably in most of the more traditional type of
products such as Cheval but not in newer, branded ones like Staybridge Suites or Citadines,” he explains. “In most cases people are staying there
“The GDS has had to respond to airlines
charging for ancillary services and they will also respond to the apartment industry’s requirements”
for three to six months. If you are choosing somewhere that is a home from home, you are hardly going to go on to the GDS, put something in and hope it is alright – you would want to see it,” says Gold. “Also, the operator is looking to smooth the passage of their accommodation over the long term: they don’t want one or two days or even a week between bookings, they want to stock the void periods, and if they are doing that on a large scale, there might be a reason why they want to influence people towards a particular apartment.” This makes an option
to extend a stay a thorny issue because it might
require moving someone who is blocking the option to extend and that could be a regular guest who had booked a specific flat and does not want to move. Furthermore, “Where a brand is part of a
hotel group, the booking infrastructure is in place, the apartments are easy to use and generally form part of a procurement process – they are on preferred supplier lists,” says partner, head of travel, leisure and tourism for KPMG, Richard Hathaway. “Travellers within our firm who are staying
away for a week or a month, are typically staying at a Staybridge Suites (IHG) or a Marriott property.” This model also plays to the tendency of procurement teams to commoditise so that ➔
THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE 35
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