UK: The Serviced Accommodation Alliance has launched “to represent the interests of landlords, agents, investors and owners operating in the serviced accommodation sector”.
The Alliance says: “The serviced accommodation sector is undergoing significant growth andchange. Short-term room bookings are expected to grow to £818 Billion (US Dollars) by 2020. AirBnB has over 100,000,000 users, 640,000 hosts, and 2.3 million serviced accommodation units. Booking.com has over 1.1 million rooms booked every night. The majority of these properties are operated by individuals or small businesses. The Alliance is predominately aimed at landlords and individuals who work hard to safeguard their financial future using, or investing in, property for serviced accommodation. Secondly, The Alliance will also serve and support the agents that are increasingly acting as a conduit between property owner and the guests that use the accommodation.”
Paul Smith, author of The Serviced Accommodation Success Manual and founder of The Serviced Accommodation Alliance, said: “Regulators, and the industry in general, need to better understand the specific role of the independent Serviced Accommodation operator, and how they differ from the larger institutional bodies.”
The Alliance says it offers “a much-needed voice to protect the individual from the anti-competitive nature of the big institutional investors; many of which seek to impose barriers to entry to individuals and small businesses to the sector. The Alliance also offers much-needed support to help individuals grow their business, bring together operator and investor, improve the quality of service provided to guests, and help raise standards across the industry”.
“All companies involved in this thriving marketplace are invited to join with us,” said Smith, “and we intend to speak for over 40 per cent of the market within five years.”
The Alliance was officially launched on September 30th, at an event in Doncaster that was attended by more than 200 large property portfolio landlords and property investors.</p
