Centres of attention include London’s Marylebone, which is getting new stock from Oakwood, Clarendon and The Apartments; and Edinburgh, with Old Town Chambers, Fountain Court Apartments and Beyonder adding to the city’s mix.
Jumeirah is to open a 300-room Venu Bluewaters Island Hotel in Dubai, with 119 serviced apartments branded Venu Living.
“We are dealing with issues handled
differently globally, and even within a country, such as: should the charge be daily or nightly? This makes the development of systems to operate and manage the sector interesting, to say the least,” says McCrow. Definitions are still much debated.
GSAIR laid down the groundwork in 2008, using ‘serviced apartment’ as a generic term, but as the latest report points out, the existing sub-categories and the new brands coming into the market make this an over-simplified definition. ASAP’s extended definition is on its website (
theasap.org.uk). The British Hospitality Association (BHA)
has set up a serviced apartments sector programme under CL Serviced Apartments’ CEO Max Thorne. It is aimed at enticing more investment into the sector and, therefore, has a different audience than that targeted by ASAP. “For our sector, this year we see priorities as sector brand build- ing, jobs and skills, the sharing economy and cutting tourism VAT,” says Thorne.
“We see priorities as sector brand building, jobs and skills, the sharing economy and cutting tourism VAT”
ASAP’s Foice is on the BHA commit- tee and says: “We are keen to support the link with the BHA – we don’t have the resources they do.” The BHA has a route to politicians and
is a lobbying force. “This is a great strength and will help raise the profile of the indus- try, particularly in the political arena, and it may help in areas like planning,” says Cheval’s Westwell. And the Hotel Booking Agents Associa- tion’s (HBAA) serviced apartment commit-
TOTAL COST OF STAY
THE APPEAL OF SERVICED APARTMENTS goes beyond the savings on rates over hotels. “Quality accommodation is seen as a big pull in terms of an organisation’s ability to attract and retain talent – it is an emotive part of the piece,” says SACO’s Ben Harper. And, according to Flying
Butler’s managing director Steve Thorne, “one of the primary reasons secondments fail is due to the transferee’s inability to acclimatise to their new location, which makes
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
their happiness in those first few weeks crucial”. Marketing director of Go Native, Laura Dweck, says: “We work with a lot of relocating Indian nationals from the IT industry and provide them with a serviced apartment for the duration of their relocation. The flexibility it offers is particularly attractive for project managers, who may have to scale the size of the project team up or down at a moment’s notice.” Per diem allowances also go farther, with
employees able to cater for themselves rather than fork out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “Hotel operators expect to make an additional 30 per cent of the room rate on extras,” says Silverdoor communications manager Caroline Saunders. These advantages
reflect well on health and wellbeing, which has a positive effect on productivity and is also an important part of duty- of-care – both to travel managers and guests.
tee continues to encourage membership from both operators and agents. Objectives for this year include the encouragement of members from international partners, and to demonstrate active participation with other recognised apartment bodies.
RELOCATION, RELOCATION... Companies who are relocating employ- ees and the specialist organisations that handle that requirement have long used serviced apartments as an interim measure for the assignee and family, whether for short- or long-term stays. “These solutions generally require flex- ibility of length of stay; 24-hour support for the assignee; primary, secondary and tertiary locations; and a style of apartment that suits every position in a company, from an entry level associate to the CEO,” says managing director of The Apartment Service, Jo Layton. “With stays varying from around two weeks to six months – and sometimes even longer – a serviced apart- ment provides the perfect alternative to the space of an AST [assured shorthold tenancy] that is contracted for a specific period of time and requires the setting up of utilities, internet and so on; or, at the other end of the scale, the flexibility of a hotel booking with no inventory checks, no deposits and selected services.” Relocation service provider Santa Fe
Group is a global player and books sig- nificant numbers of serviced apartments per year for clients, who stipulate 10, 30 or 60 days for temporary accommodation before those relocating find themselves somewhere permanent; or three to six months for a short-term assignment. Santa Fe director of relocation and assignment services, Rob Fletcher, was dealing with “countless” serviced apart- ments suppliers and recently put the business out to tender. He started with informal approaches to providers world- wide, narrowing it down until a small number was invited to present to him and colleagues from the company’s offices around the world. This included how
BBT MARCH/APRIL 2015 107
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128