Australia: Sydney-based corporate accommodation startup Urban Rest has expanded into Melbourne.
The company aims to manage at least 100 serviced apartments in the city by the end of the year.
Founded in 2017 by David Whelan, Urban Rest brought its first 20 apartments to Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank area in late July and also has 74 Sydney properties in its portfolio.
It does not directly own any properties, but leases apartments, typically five to 15 in one building, and rest them out to corporate travellers, with clients including McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting Group, KPMG, Deloitte and Canva.
It also operates properties, some entire buildings, on behalf of owners – particularly developers holding residual stock due to the residential market downturn.
“We are trying to disrupt the longer-term corporate accommodation industries, particularly the existing serviced apartment providers,” said Whelan told Commercial Real Estate. “The existing industry has either properties that are old with little thought to design and low-quality service, or new with decent styling and exorbitant pricing. By offering professionally styled, full-sized properties in a wide range of locations and at much more budget-conscious prices, we are looking to emulate in the serviced apartment industry what Airbnb did in the hotel industry, except ensuring consistent quality and processes in order to appropriately service the corporate market.”
The company outsources hotel-type amenities to external providers, such as partnerships with Uber Eats and Deliveroo, on-demand massage service Blyss, as well as other services including drycleaning, medical and gym memberships.
“The push into Melbourne, along with the rest of the planned expansion, has been purely demand driven, with many of our existing and potential clients preferring a national distribution in order to provide consistency for their staff,” said Whelan.
The company is set to launch in Brisbane and Adelaide before the end of the year, and is eyeing New Zealand as its first international market.
“Serviced accommodation in Australia alone is a $3.5 billion-a-year industry, which represents a huge opportunity because of how traditionally under served it has been. The continual shift to employee health and wellbeing as a factor in deciding their accommodation, especially over the medium to long term, means that large corporates simply want better options than have been available in the market.”</p
