What's negotiable?

Although pricing in serviced apartments is generally about length of stay and there are fewer negotiated corporate rates specific to a client than in the hotel world, not all serviced apartment operators offer a length of stay discount. Many only offer a rate per night or per week. As in hotels, seasons can make a difference and may offer some 'wriggle room' for negotiation. For corporate housing however often the stay will be for a longer period and seasonal factors will make less of a difference.

Within the product there is little to negotiate on. What is offered and charged for leaves little to 'strip away' such as meal plans included in hotel rates. As more and more corporates are looking to serviced apartments as a part of transient programmes where rate negotiation is obligatory, it will be interesting to see how pricing models and rate negotiation develop.

What if I mandate using serviced apartments in my programme?

This is an area where benefits can be gained within the traditional transient programmes for a corporate. By considering location, specific needs and average length of stay, a serviced apartment solution could save the company money and provide a better product for the traveller.

For example The Apartment Service manages a number of apartments on behalf of a major retail company. They looked at what they were putting into the area around their Head Office and mandated that every stay of five or more nights went into one of those apartments and as a result saved considerable amounts on the 'transient' hotel spend. Companies should also look to bring in other departments such as HR and Project Managers who often operate independently of procurement and hotel programmes. When someone is seconded to run a new office for three months (for example), the stay is consolidated into the overall company programme instead of being fragmented between the travel management company and relocation agency, resulting in traditional accommodation solutions being used and cost benefits not being realised.

Many companies are looking at how to achieve this consolidation. The current corporate buzz is of all-encompassing 'Mobility Programmes' as opposed to transient travel programmes and relocation programmes running independently and managed separately within an organisation.

Is it difficult for my TMC to book corporate housing?

TMC's traditionally prefer to book via GDS - commercial factors aside - to avoid time-consuming and costly manual workload. As a result, there has been some reluctance to embrace serviced apartments. However, with more corporates wanting to incorporate serviced apartments into their programmes, and developments such as The Apartment Service's forthcoming web services, opportunities are opening up to make things more 'user friendly' for TMCs.

In the extended stay market, on-line availability is not such an issue, but for the much less commoditised corporate housing product, there will continue to be barriers to on-line availability.