Serviced Apartments emerge as an alternative to hotels in Bangalore

With the rise in Indian and international business traffic to Bangalore, the demand within the hospitality industry has skyrocketed. The new genre of serviced apartments has hence emerged as a cost effective alternative for business travellers and tourists. These serviced-apartments are largely operated by apartment owners or builders and usually offer entire apartments (1, 2 or 3 bedroom) or studio units or shared apartments.

According to real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, Bangalore currently has approximately 15 professionally managed serviced apartments including Homestead, Chalet, Sterling Suits, Halcyon among others, which are spread across high interest residential areas like Lavelle Road, Langford Town, Brunton Road, Vittal Mallya Road, Airport road and Indiranagar.

Largely catering to corporates, business travellers, tourists, expatriates and families, the tariffs range between INR 1,500 per day for a 1-bedroom/ studio to INR 6,000 plus per day for a 3-bedroom apartment. These serviced apartments allow the flexibility associated with short-term accommodation avoiding longterm commitments.

Most professionally run centres are not class-comparables to 5-star hotels though some of them offer facilities like guest lounge, swimming pool, spa, restaurant, housekeeping, business centre and other clubhouse facilities. Occupancy levels in these are usually around 90%, indicating the tremendous latent demand in the market.

Apart from these, there is also a large unorganised market in the city, which is driven by mom and pop establishments. These however do not provide the facilities offered by the professionally run centres and their rates vary depending on the duration of stay, location, services provided, ambience etc.

Unlike Mumbai, prominent hospitality brands have not yet entered the serviced apartment sector in Bangalore. The advent of international brands like Oakwood and Ascott which have plans to launch shortly, would lead to an increase in healthy competition and thereby improved services and products.

Cushman & Wakefield expects several more centres to come up in peripheral areas such as Whitefield, Bellary Road and Hebbal.

Courtesy: INRnews