Greece: Extended-stay apartment rental company Blueground has opened its first properties in London and Paris.
The company’s inventory is spread across different apartment buildings within a city, usually with only one or two per property.
Bookings are made online and there are no reception desks, with guests collecting keys from the building concierge, a key nest or a nearby partner business and self-checking in.
The minimum stay is 30 days, with the average stay currently between five and seven months.
Services such as room cleaning, laundry, maintenance, food shopping or key replacement are requested via the Blueground app. This puts customers in contact with a 24/hour support team, which then contacts the building manager or a third-party service provider.
The company launched in Athens in 2015, later opening apartments in Dubai and Istanbul.
In 2017 it made its US debut and has units in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago and Seattle.
The company has 3,500 apartments worldwide. There are 15 in London and 15 in Paris, and the company plans to grow to 250 in each by the end of 2020.
“Our founder used to travel a lot in his job as a consultant and was sick of hotels and not having something that felt like his own apartment,” said Saad Cheema, Blueground’s head of global expansion, in an interview with Business Traveller.
“He wanted to create something more homey with a modern aesthetic. Our apartments should look and feel like apartments, but they can be rented easily in the medium or long-term. It’s meant to add to the feeling of homeliness. Everyone around you didn’t arrive yesterday, there’s more of a community.”
“We provide the ease of finding, booking and accessing an apartment. If you tried to rent from an agent you’d need a lot of paperwork, it can be a lot of hassle, maybe you don’t have UK credit. With us you get access to services but you’re not coming back to a hotel and walking through a lobby. It’s an apartment building and inside there are little touches like the throws on the bed, the colour palette, the lighting, which should all be soothing and calming,” he added.
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