Gaining momentum

• Encouraging news for serviced apartments and the extended stay sector this week as the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) renamed its hotel committees, dropping the word hotel in favour of accommodations.

As committee member Jan Jacobsen of AIG said: “While hotels are still a very important element of most corporate travel plans, there has been a significant rise in the use of aparthotels and serviced apartments, and the big players in the home sharing space are also looking to gain a foothold in the corporate travel market, so we felt the time was right to change.”

Jacobsen, winner of the Buyer of the Year award at the 2018 Serviced Apartment Awards, is one of those working hard to raise awareness and increase the use of serviced apartments among his company’s travellers, liaising closely with suppliers to ensure they are up to speed with what the AIG program expects to see.

Other positive news was found in the latest GSAIR report, published in June, which found that more than half of corporates are using serviced apartments for business travel, with 40 per cent allocating up to 20 per cent of their accommodation budget to extended stay solutions.

There is a great opportunity to build on these solid foundations by demonstrating to corporate clients that we can provide what The Apartment Service’s Jo Layton calls the travel programs’ key requirements – compliance, transparency, analysis, cost-effectiveness and ease of booking.

Let’s keep the momentum going.