Three Reasons Why Serviced Apartments Make More Sense
All of us have to make a choice about the type of accommodation that we want each time we chalk out our travel plans. Is the choice between hotels and serviced apartments just a matter of personal preference? Though they fulfill similar type of needs there are many differences between the two that we should take into consideration before we make our bookings.
1. Serviced apartments are cheaper:
For stays of over a week, serviced apartments are usually cheaper than comparable hotels by 10 to 15%. For stays of over a month, the savings could be as high as 25% and for stays longer than 3 months it could be as high as 40%.
There are many reasons for these savings:
a) Housekeeping and maid services are less frequent in a serviced apartment resulting in lesser cost to the establishment in salaries and laundry costs.
b) Apartments, especially those which have eating outlets nearby, don’t usually run a restaurant. This reduces their overheads.
c) There are fewer hidden charges. Most hotel tariffs include the cost of breakfast which is provided for ‘free’ with the room. This is actually a way of passing on some of the overheads of running the restaurant to us.
d) For stays of over five or six days we will be forced to use the laundry services. This is something that we have an option of saving in a serviced apartment. Facilities like internet access and telephones are usually very expensive in hotels which push up the overall costs further.
e) For very long stays, a serviced apartment can help us save a lot on taxes. Though the rules are different from country to country, hotels usually pay a fixed rate, while serviced apartments pay a rate that reduces with the duration of the stay. The drop in taxes can be steep, for example, from 20% to 4% of the total bill after a month.
2. Location:
This is an important consideration for those of us who have to travel a lot for business purposes. The best accommodation in this case is one which is located close to our area of interest or place of work. While travelling for business purposes most of us usually don’t get much time to stay in our rooms anyway.
Hotels are usually clustered around specific areas of high tourist activity. This may not be the best choice for all business travelers. Serviced apartments on the other hand are more widely spread out giving us better location options.
3. Comfort:
Even a studio apartment is bigger than a hotel room. So we get more space for the buck. Some sort of kitchen facility is always provided, so there is no over dependence on restaurants and coffee shops. Here are the comfort factors:
• Families and groups can opt for a bigger apartment with more than one bedroom so that everybody can be comfortably accommodated.
• A fully equipped kitchen is a boon for large groups. They can have homemade food and save a lot on restaurant bills in the process.
• There is always more privacy and freedom and less intrusion from housekeeping staff.
Serviced apartments should be the natural choice for anyone wanting to stay for durations longer than three or four days. Even though the cost savings are not so significant for shorter stays, the comfort that the better privacy and bigger space provides is a definite plus.
