Left: Citadines Barbican rooms do not have kitchens but studios and apartments do. Above: Stow-away serviced apartments
Growth also leads to new brands. While Silverdoor Apartments now focuses on corporate business and Citybase Apartments on leisure travellers, Staycity has launched upmarket Wilde Aparthotels on London’s Strand. “The market is evolving fast and we felt we needed a design-led, premium offer in our portfolio for central locations in gateway cities,” says Staycity CEO Tom Walsh.
The continued evolution of the sector has led to the introduction of category-bending micro-apartments. Although not branded as an apartment, Bridgestreet opened its first Stüdyo in Paddington in March with 20 units that start from 9 sqm. These have no kitchen, but there is a full kitchen with dining space in the communal area. “Guests are not behaving as we expected and are staying between four days and five months,” says CEO Sean Worker. “The apartments are whimsical, bright and inviting, and someone already wants to develop a number of them.” Stüdyo is not alone in ditching the kitchen. Citadines Barbican London’s recent renovation included rooms without kitchenettes, and studios and apartments with kitchen facilities. Citadines Islington will follow suit in 2019. Similarly, standard rooms in Ascott’s new brand Lyf (pronounced life) have no kitchen and guests use a social facility. Two properties open in China next year and a third in Singapore in 2021. Adagio Access is also going down the
route of having a communal kitchen in some properties. “The opening in Frankfurt
this year was the first to trial this and with great success,” says deputy CEO for Aparthotels Adagio, Karim Malak. And Visionapartments’ new Livinghotels in Vienna and Vevey also follow this model. However, an apartment without a kitchen is a hotel room under any other name, which senior associate at HVS, Nicole Perreten, says is “an interesting move, considering that an in-room kitchen was the original USP for the serviced apartment concept”.
Bridgestreet will be running micro- apartments brand Stow-away, funded by Ciel Capital and Stow Projects. The first property opens on Lower Marsh, London SE1, in October and is a modular construction using shipping containers. Ciel’s CEO, Vedrana Bilanovic Riley says: “Not all locations will use containers, although the quicker you can create the asset, the faster you can start cash-flow, so containers would be the way to go.”
Millennial moves
has had a pervasive influence. Bookers are gearing programmes to travellers’ requirements, juggling this with keeping a weather eye on duty-of-care and security, and aparthotels are forging ahead with ever-livelier communal areas. “We have enhanced our social evenings with new street food and ping-pong tournaments to make a stay fun,” says John Wagner, director at Cycas Hospitality. Oakwood Studios – a suite of apartments aimed at this audience – opened in Singapore
in March. Ascott’s Lyf is designed and managed by millennials.
Sharing space is a millennial trait. “We book a range of apartments, studios, one-bed and for some of the bigger projects, two-bed,” says PwC’s head of UK hotels and venues Sam van Leeuwen. “In Greenwich, we even use three-bedroom apartments. We look at the margins and profitability is usually better. That is one of the changes over the past few years: some of the more junior staff, graduates, are used to that. It is very cost
effective for us to use them to deliver a project – and for the client.” Technology as an enticing feature has been recognised by serviced apartments company Flying Butler. “We’re moving into mobile-controlled sound and heating systems in our newer blocks and have introduced Yourwelcome tablets to automate check-in, provide detailed instructions on appliances, and to enable the client to buy theatre tickets, book restaurants, etc,” says director and major investor Peter Strafford.
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