Flexible friends

As the aparthotel model becomes increasingly popular, more and more serviced apartment providers are cutting the length of their minimum stay. In the last couple of weeks, two regional UK operators, Week2Week in Newcastle and Citystay in Cambridge have started offering guests the option to book from as little as one night. Both companies say they were responding to client demand, with Week2Week reporting an almost immediate surge in bookings.

It’s great to see companies being proactive and offering their clients what they clearly want – with such a wide choice of accommodation options available now, they will quickly look elsewhere if you don’t, so this flexibility is going to be vital. Week2Week also reported that the client profile – transient business travellers – was similar to its core business. This reflects comments made at the 2016 Serviced Apartment Summit by a panel of travel managers for Blue Chip companies

They said that once their travellers had had their first serviced apartment experience, they often wanted to book one again, even for very short trips. As a result all three buyers on the panel said they were seeing a rise in short term use of serviced apartments. Long stay corporate business is obviously highly desirable and will always be a cornerstone of the sector, but to survive and flourish, operators need to be as adaptable as possible to keep their customers happy.