Susan Cully
It was revealed last year that London has just 1.6 serviced apartments per 1000 business travellers — and demand is beginning to outstrip supply in the capital.
This is highly indicative of the business travellers' interest in becoming better acquainted with the serviced apartment industry. With this comes a responsibility for the key players in the industry to ensure that clear standards are set and understood by all.
Being aware of the serviced apartment name confusion I ponder if the serviced apartment industry would benefit from name homogenisation. That is, would it be useful for the general public if there was some sort of standardisation about what different accommodation types were called?
People in the industry generally agree this would be useful; but how easy this would be is greatly debated. Until such a time comes when the industry can agree on such labels, it would be much more sensible to set a standard for quality, service and value — three traits on which my company prides itself. So even if a guest doesn't quite understand the difference between corporate housing and serviced apartments, the standards of quality are undeniably recognised.
In a bid to establish those providers who adhere to the strictest standards of quality and service, the Association of Serviced Apartment Providers (ASAP) has introduced a Quality Assessment programme.
A quality standard has been launched and will be rolled out worldwide ©iStock/blackredJames Foice, ASAP's managing director said "Users are currently unsure about what they can expect and most importantly there is a lack of global recognition, thanks to varied terminology and a different level of industry maturity."
With this in mind, the ASAP marque is given only to those providers who meet all the core compliance of legal, health and safety requirements, and is a much welcomed step to help provide our guests with a greater reassurance of quality and standards within the industry. ASAP assesses each serviced apartment provider based upon a sample site visit, overnight quality assessment and a complete review of the customer journey on an annual basis.
There is an immeasurable difference between self-accreditation and being certified by an industry body. For guests, it is all about trust: being able to display a marque of quality from a professional and dedicated association demonstrates that a provider has been approved by a standardised system.
For some years now it has been necessary for non-hotel accommodation providers to self-accredit a star-rating largely based upon standard hotelier criteria — even if this may not be completely appropriate or accurate because there has been no alternative. What a provider might claim is four-star accommodation, for example, may actually be more akin to a three-star hotel — and with such ratings come a certain expectation from the guest. If this expectation isn't met by the provider, it not only hurts the accommodation provider in question but it harms the integrity of our industry as a whole.
With the number of serviced apartment providers growing at a rapid rate with many smaller independent operators — the number of serviced apartments in Europe is projected to increase by 50% by the end of 2016 — it is more important now than ever for the industry to adhere to quality standards for the benefit of progress, public awareness and understanding so that new players into our industry aren't able to tarnish the name of an industry which we've worked hard to establish.