At your service?

On the operator side, SilverDoor SVP of partner relationships Alex Neale says “there’s still a lot of work to be done” to encourage property partners to digitise booking and management systems “and there are a lot of different operators on a lot of different products”. But, he says, “it’s certainly developing quickly”.

“It will take time for serviced apartments to catch up [to hotels] in certain elements, but there’s quite a strong online offering in many markets already and we have a number of corporate programmes that are already committed to using online availability alongside our offline service,” Neale adds.

Meanwhile, serviced apartment specialist Mysa in June rolled out a new tool that allows corporates to “build-your-own” serviced accommodation programme by enabling direct connectivity with property operators.

Known as ‘Build’, the platform is powered by Mysa’s Myo online booking tool (first launched in 2022) and provides a suite of modules that can be tailored to specific policy requirements. This includes real-time rate negotiation and booking capabilities and different tiers of permission for different users. All properties within the tool are vetted by Mysa for safety and security.

“The tool provides a blank canvas so corporates can create a serviced accommodation programme that fits in with the company’s procedures,” says Mysa founder and CEO, Gary Hurst. In order words, to ensure compliance with due diligence processes and existing back-office systems for invoicing and expense claims.

“[Our] system is built of many different functionalities what are all connected by APIs, so that gives users the flexibility to integrate into other technologies – whether that’s a connection to another booking platform [via a TMC] or feeding data to an expense management system or to a travel security company,” Hurst explains.

“The biggest challenge for buyers is to gain visibility into the serviced apartment sector – and to know who the operators are,” he adds. “By providing the ability to have direct contact with operators, you not only remove the cost of third-party bookers, but also create opportunities for customer care to flourish.”

Hurst insists this will also streamline procurement and booking processes because “operators are feeding directly into the tech and essentially own a piece of it with their own little portal”. Whereas third-party aggregators “are still reliant on their supply chain to feed them the availability that is then fed to the client”.

Another relatively new entrant looking to shake things up is extended stay accommodation platform AltoVita, which is set to launch a new AI-powered rate forecasting platform in early 2025.

Unveiled at the company’s recent summit in London, the Alto360 data intelligence tool will analyse historic pricing and market trends “in seconds” to predict future rates, and allow travel buyers and global mobility managers to benchmark policies against market data for cities across the world. This includes breakdowns of average daily rates by location, length of stay, property type and travel dates.

The tool will include rate forecasts for both hotels and serviced apartments, and enable corporate clients to compare average daily rates and budgets, according to the company.

Speaking at the summit, AltoVita CEO and co-founder Vivi Cahyadi Himmel said the company is also looking to combine short and extended stay accommodation. “We want to consolidate extended stay and short stay, and remove the GDSs entirely from the equation,” she said.

Meanwhile, serviced apartments operator Frasers Hospitality in June partnered with Sabre to implement the latter’s SynXis retailing tool, which allows operators to sell tailored ancillary services.

“[This] enables us to offer additional services directly to the customer at the time of booking, and to curate more personalised and tailored guest experiences,” says Frasers Hospitality COO, EMEA, Rebecca Hollants Van Loocke.

And while Frasers content is bookable via traditional distribution channels, Hollants Van Loocke concedes the GDS “was always built around hotels, so I would like to see that evolve to enable us to give a lot more detail and more specifics around different lengths of stay”.

That evolution – and the integration of serviced apartment content – whether via the GDS, the cloud or through API plug-ins, may very soon materialise.

Hutchings, who formed her own consulting firm earlier this year and is also a strategic adviser to SilverDoor, said the slew of new entrants “is a big demonstration of the fact that serviced apartments are a viable option beyond the mobility/relocation sphere and can be a part of the overall transient business travel programme, especially as sustainability drives less frequent but longer trips.”

Even so, Wood PLC’s Cockton warns: “Buyers need to be brave enough and courageous enough to push the supply chain to deliver what they want. We can make these things happen if we work collectively [and] that’s part of the challenge.”