Urban centers offer numerous hotels from all the major chains and charge top dollar to their guests. Many executives however are required to oversee projects or take courses on a long-term basis of several months where the cramped confines of a normal hotel room are nothing to look forward to in terms of comfort or expense. Paying for restaurant meals every day is expensive and not everyone likes to frequent restaurants when they would rather be relaxing or working in quiet surroundings so a roomy apartment suite with a kitchen and all the amenities of a condo building are preferable. To create a comfortable alternative to hotels, these folks are catered to by entrepreneurs in the corporate housing industry.
Extended stay corporate accommodations are a fairly recent phenomenon in North America, becoming prominent as a growth industry since about 1985; in Europe there is a century-long tradition of home-away-from-home lodging for VIPs in the business world. The famously hospitable people of the Netherlands are probably the best example of people treating visitors like one of their own. The main limitation is not on the number of prospective customers but on the number of units available and so the corporate housing professional’s role entails locating more suite owners to lease their space for all or part of the year. As the property owners see more profit in leasing out their apartments, they are inclined to stay with the formula and possibly acquire more units to offer.
A large number of distracting activities can occur in and around chain hotels. In a typical day in the city of Toronto I witnessed a large crowd gathered outside of a hotel. There were reporters and cameras everywhere, limos, security people, and all the commotion of a common event – the arrival of a celebrity in town to film a movie. This caused hotel operations to be very stressful since it coincided with an employee strike; the next day the autograph-seeking crowd was replaced by a picket line of angry union members chanting slogans and disrupting hotel operations. This can happen anytime and it’s certainly no way to maintain concentration on the business presentation someone is trying to put together or other concentration task needed to conceptualize on a deadline. Interruption of major business ideas can be frustrating and costly.
The extended stay corporate suite gives executives total privacy and control over their lifestyle, diet, and work habits. They may have family with them, in which case a hotel room arrangement would be totally unworkable. The customer of a corporate suites company is typically sent out of town at the behest of his firm and is expected to produce a profitable layer of work in a set amount of time. The option of avoiding the hustle and bustle of the hotel environment provides an essential method for accomplishing objectives in place of solving problems of housing while in the city. The system of reservation is online and is refreshingly uncomplicated; it requires only a desired area of the city in which to locate and the choice of decor that will make the customer feel right at home.