Should Apartment Hotels be your next travel choice of stay?

Meet “Apartment Hotels”: the meeting point between Apartments and Hotels.

An apartment hotel is a hotel that combines features of a traditional hotel room/experience and a short-term rental apartment stay. Known as Serviced Accommodation, Apart-hotels or Hotel Apartments, the typical Apartment Hotel offers “hotel convenience” and a “home away from home” experience in many ways.

While apartment hotels are also used by regular travelers, for business or pleasure, they are designed primarily for longer stays and have traditionally been preferred by people staying for a significant length of time away from their home area for any number of reasons.

These include people travelling in families or large close-knit groups, travelers needing certain specifics for health reasons, people caught in the middle of moving to a new house etc.

Apartment hotels (AHs) are fast gaining popularity as a lodging option in Nigeria but have long been a popular choice in many other parts of the world and have seen a steady increase in appeal over the years. Finding a shared apartment for rent in Abuja for instance, is as much a search item as shortlet apartments in Abuja and other major cities in Nigeria

With this increase in popularity among holidaymakers, tourists, business groups and travelling professionals, many hotel chains are introducing Apart-Hotels because it makes sense to “follow the money” and of course the money is held by the paying customer. And while trends can be started by the ficklest of reasons (the downsides of a highly visual social media era), there are several reasons why the demand for serviced accommodation is on the rise. Here are the most common ones which are applicable across the world:

• SPACE!! This is such a converter. The appeal is enormous across all kinds of demographics. Who wouldn’t want more space if they could get that without breaking the bank? As part of their USP (Unique Selling Proposition), Apartment Hotels offer more than the usual cramped hotel space. With hotel bookings, even when a lodger decides to treat themselves to a larger space, hotel rooms can easily feel cramped.

Many apartment hotels offer more physical space than their daily rate counterparts in a traditional hotel. From bedrooms to living areas, this can translate into more comfy living, encouraging lodgers to really unpack and unwind. Imagine student groups, families with children, professionals with work folders and suitcases of presentation materials etc., everyone could do with the extra space and apartment-hotels offer it up nicely

• THE “HOME” FEEL!! Have you ever thought to yourself on the third day of a weeklong hotel stay “I am getting tired of this”? Well, you’re not the only one. Studies show that hotel lodgers quite often cannot sleep well on the first night and many get bored after a few nights, even at the most luxurious hotels. There’s a really simple reason for this; HOTELS DO NOT FEEL LIKE HOME. There are whole industries dedicated to ways you can make a hotel stay feel more ‘homey’ and that definitely tells a compelling story. With Apartment Hotels, the lodger has greater control over what their spaces look and feel like.

For many AH lodgers, this opportunity to turn a third-party space into a mini version of their homes makes the lodging easier and more enjoyable and increasingly, lodgers use the opportunity to replicate holiday traditions in their Apartment Homes, a feat that cannot be achieved easily in traditional hotels.

And it’s not just the small family with growing children, the lonely individual looking for cheaper long-term accommodation while they sort out their housing needs, or tourist groups seeking cheap group accommodation with inexpensive dining and housekeeping services. From honeymooners to busy professionals, short stay and long stay travelers, having a space they can customize with a rug from home, a halogen oven for their dietary needs, comforters and succulent plants for comfort and creativity surely provides great appeal when choosing a place to lodge, especially in a foreign city with a relatively low crime rate

• GREATER PRIVACY. Hotels do offer some level of privacy; I hear you say. You have your own room and people can only gain access if you grant them access. While this is true, in serviced apartments the privacy promise is even greater. Unlike with traditional hotels where the lodger shares some facilities, many apartment hotels offer near-complete privacy everywhere; bedroom(s), kitchen, living area etc., with no shared amenities.

• GREATER APPEAL FOR LONG-TERM STAYS. Staying in a hotel for a few short days can be fun, a way to treat yourself and provide a change of scenery. However, a hotel room isn’t the most practical option for a longer stay. Thankfully, serviced accommodations are great for virtually any length of stay. With everything you need and your own space, serviced apartments are a perfect choice for stays of days, weeks or months. With the apartment service, these can mean that services like full housekeeping and frequent linen changes are not as readily available in Apart-Hotels but with full kitchens, laundry rooms or washing machines, full control over one’s feeding bills (we all know those can be a wallet-drainer) and many other perks, more and more travelers are seeking apartment hotels for short stays too..

• It also helps with inexpensive entertaining, making it a great choice for retreats away from busy lives even in the same town.

Quite like traditional hotels, apartment hotels come in a variety of nightly rates and types. From simple one-bedroom apartments or suites to full luxury apartments, there is something for a wide range of budgets and lifestyle requirements. Apartment hotels come in low-priced budget chains (especially in places like the United States and Europe), mid-range hotels and really luxurious brands too.

Here in Nigeria, the same applies for service apartments in Abuja and major cities. A major difference is that chain brands typically have a similar layout and feel while those created from recently converted traditional hotels may look rather quaint in contrast.

Apartment hotels can feel literally like going home. In smaller establishments, it is not uncommon for the place to be run without staff apart from housekeeping staff. No lengthy check in etc. In larger establishments, check-in and out procedures would necessarily involve more detail but compared to traditional hotels, these tend to be more informal. Some brands provide a comfortable blend of both: simple check-in procedures and spacious rooms that can be personalized by the lodger during their stay.

Whether a stay is for work or pleasure, on a short term or long-term basis, Apartment Hotels provide lodgers with the unique opportunity to personalize their stay at a fraction of the cost of a regular hotel. This appeals to lodgers looking for weekend apartments as well as service apartments. But is it for everyone? Find out more in next week’s “Is the Apartment Hotel for me or someone else?”.

~Nkechi, writing for Anabel Apartment and Suites Limited