Possession & Genius

It’s said that Possession is nine-tenths

...and Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration

Rather like the duck gliding serenely on the water, yet in reality paddling furiously under the surface, it takes a lot of effort to deliver smooth convenience and flexibility that is expected by the Business Traveller, especially the person staying more than a few days, which means the majority of relocating individuals and families. Flexibility is a great benefit of serviced apartments, but it is also the great challenge faced daily by Reservations Staff.

It’s an acknowledged convention of the accommodation industry, that availability has to be managed actively, to maximise occupancy, in order to keep buildings viable. Serviced Apartment inventory and availability is much more fragmented than the equivalent for Hotels, and apartment occupancy has to be allocated in larger parcels. This is because Hotels tend to be bigger than Serviced Apartment Buildings.

Why is that so?

For example, whereas an Hotel may have 100 identical rooms, giving 2800 room-nights in 28 nights, the average Serviced Apartment Building may have 10 comparable apartments, giving 280 room-nights in the same period.

Let’s briefly look at the numbers:

A typical booking for an Hotel may be as long as 4 nights, which in the above example is a mere 0.14% of that hotel’s total occupancy for the 28 nights' the Reservation Manager has to sell.

In comparison, a typical booking for a Serviced Apartment may be 14 nights, which is 5% of that serviced apartment building’s total occupancy.

So …the Serviced Apartment booking is over 30 times a bigger deal than the Hotel reservation. This is why booking serviced apartments requires an additional dimension of care by the Reservations Staff and Management, over that required for a Hotel.

Added to this is the commercial imperative (mentioned above) to achieve cost-efficiency from high levels of occupancy:

What’s different about availability in Serviced Apartments buildings?

When a Reservations Manager starts to make decisions about placing "strategic" bookings in position, he or she creates a dynamic profile of gaps, where there is remaining availability. These can be filled tactically.

However, unless later bookings or requirements are 100% reliable and perfectly fit the gaps, buildings will soon be looking “marginal” or nervous on occupancy, even two weeks prior to any given date.

In Hotels, where the overwhelming bulk of stays are very short indeed, there is a high percentage "churn" each day, accepted as a fact of life, because the business-world is geared to need this flexibility. There is also therefore, a high likelihood of last-minute arrivals. This makes it much easier to react to cancellations and late bookings.

Serviced Apartment Reservations Managers will "juggle" bookings several times before arrival, in order to maximise occupancy, they will also have to apply a realistic cancellation policy, to mitigate potential risk of losses, because Serviced Apartment buildings cannot simply wait for the perfect guests to “walk-in” at the last minute, and then stay for 14 nights!!.

What can I do to ease this difficulty and get better value?

The better the lead-time, the better the result will be.

A "rule of thumb" for Serviced Apartments - if you can - is to aim to book at least 14 days ahead of arrival, for a typical 14 night Reservation. For a stay of less than 7 nights it should be possible to book down to 7 days ahead of arrival.

It’s better to start REALLY EARLY, with a sensible - but postepone-able, set of dates.

Then, with good communications (and established relationships) the best path can be found to balance commitment with flexibility.

The later a traveller has visibility of their plans, inevitably much of the "first-choice" availability may have been booked, but less exact matches for the brief may be proposed as a workable “Plan B”.

With serviced apartments it’s all about People:

People need flexibility AND convenience, especially when they are “on the move” - then People can produce their best.