SERVICED APARTMENTS
The right location
AS THROWAWAY REMARKS GO, Robert Godwin is up there on the medal-winning podium. There we are, chatting about this and that – he’s head honcho at Lamington Serviced Apartments – when he just happens to drop in the fact that he was a member of Team GB’s Olympic sailing squad. This is a man who clearly knows his jib from his transom, so it should come as no surprise that, by the middle of April, Lamington will be opening a 71-key apartment block in Southampton which – as the more geographically- savvy of you will be aware – is near water; quite a lot of water, as it happens.
It is a radical departure for Lamington, which has hitherto been centred in and around Hammersmith, where the sailing opportunities are, frankly, limited. There are two things to note. First, Lamington is seriously design-led. Second, Godwin is very ambitious – he hopes to have 1,000 units within the next ten years. Which leads us on to the cuckoo. It travels great distances and, rather than build a twiggy residence of its own, moves into egg-friendly accommodation provided by others of the avian fraternity. Hence Cuckooz, a fledgling (pun intended) design-led, ambitious serviced apartment company co-founded in September 2016 by Charlie Rosier and Fabienne O’Neill, and aimed at people who travel great distances and then need somewhere to stay – although presumably not to lay eggs. Prompted by their own travelling experiences, the two women decided there was a gap in the market for an upscale offering that provided all the traditional benefits of a serviced apartment combined
106 BBT March/April 2018
with what they call “boutique hotel quality”, providing guests with the opportunity to immerse themselves “bleisurely” in their new surroundings. Those “surroundings” were
restricted to just four units, with around 30 apartments between them, in and around the City of London. By the time this issue of Buying Business Travel makes the usual heavy thud on the doormat, they should have signed up two more units – again close to the Square Mile – doubling the number of apartments on offer. Further expansion in London is on the cards, but Rosier’s next big goal is to expand into tech hubs across Europe, where the co-founders hope to replicate their impressive corporate track record – Cuckooz is already a preferred supplier with the likes of Amazon and money transfer giant Transferwise, among others. They’re not alone in their corporate focus. Trine Oestergaard, managing director of Berkshire-based House of Fisher, calculates that 80 per cent of the guests in the company’s 200 apartments (13 units, in seven locations in the Thames Valley) are business travellers. Like Cuckooz’s Rosier, Oestergaard has a clear idea of where she wants the company to be. “I think for us it’s about being ‘business smart’ – operationally we want to control what we are doing,” she says. “I can see us moving towards Oxford or maybe a little closer to London, but not farther afield. That would be completely new to us, and we want to do what we do well.” House of Fisher has two big advantages. First, it is a subsidiary of property development company
Cuckooz is opening more apartments in the City of London
T. A. Fisher, so sourcing new sites is a combined effort. Second, and probably more importantly, the company is sitting almost on top of the new Crossrail – Reading, Maidenhead and Slough are already seeing a huge influx of new businesses, and the proposed rail spur to Heathrow will only add to the commercial opportunities. House of Fisher isn’t the only company content to restrict its geographical reach. Portfolio Serviced Apartments managing director Carly Fitzpatrick is quite happy – for the time being – with her 20 apartments in three units in Hatfield, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City. At the time of writing, she was considering a move into St Albans, and she remains
convinced that Hertfordshire is where it’s at. That’s hardly surprising when one considers the scale of the corporates on her figurative doorstep. Glaxosmithkline has a huge presence in Stevenage; Airbus is a near neighbour (Stevenage is the place to go if you need drugs, or a satellite); Tesco’s headquarters in Welwyn (if you need anything else). Two years into the job, Fitzpatrick insists: “I said from day one that I believed in the area, and I think it is still relatively unexplored. If you’re in London, you’re up against loads of competitors, but there are lots of ‘untouched’ areas like ours. We’re based on or near business parks where the clients are.”
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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