Apartments versus hotels: the keys to a home abroad

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This was published 14 years ago

Apartments versus hotels: the keys to a home abroad

More than a hotel ... an apartment at Marriott Sathorn Vista in Bangkok.

More than a hotel ... an apartment at Marriott Sathorn Vista in Bangkok.

Planning family holidays abroad is usually riddled with complexities but planning a trip to St Petersburg earlier this year proved both complex and frightening for me.

A falling Australian dollar had sent room rates skyrocketing in a city often rated as one of the world's most expensive. Two small rooms in a three-star hotel were going to set me back between $600 and $800 a night for our three-day trip. Did we really need a hotel's room service, daily cleaning and an on-hand concierge? We decided to rent an apartment instead.

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We found one on the second floor of a grand building, once the home of Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, just steps from picturesque Fontanka Canal and the rearing horse statues guarding Anichkov Bridge.

What the sparkling clean and recentlyrenovated apartment lacked in luxury it made up for in size: 200 square metres, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a washing machine and slightly dysfunctional kitchen. We got to spread out in one of the city's most famous residential buildings for €115 ($202) a night.

Hotels have been discounting tariffs to counter the effects of the global financial crisis in some cities but hotels in others, such as St Petersburg, Paris and London, appear to remain immune. The cost of a decent hotel room and the relative ease of finding alternative holiday accommodation online has led an increasing number of travellers to rent urban apartments. Once this was the domain of business executives on short-term projects; now it is a trend spreading to leisure travellers.

"There is definitely a shift away from hotels and into short-term apartment rentals," says Aivo Takis, an apartment owner in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, who regularly chooses this style of accommodation when travelling. He says the biggest benefit is the kind of floor space that would be unaffordable in a hotel and the privacy and flexibility to entertain and relax when travelling with a group of friends or family.

There's the charm of living, even briefly, like a local among other locals. Access to a washing machine will save time and laundry fees. And the ability to prepare snacks and meals in a kitchen will save money and lead you to food markets and the chance to sample regional produce. Access to a kitchen is especially useful when travelling with children or those with special dietary requirements.

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"What I don't like is the many hours you have to spend looking for the 'right' apartment and the uncertainty of what you will find when you get there," Takis says.

There are hundreds of agencies listing thousands of apartments online, including some dodgy ones where travellers have arrived to find their pre-paid pad already occupied, or a property looking much less attractive than the images promised. Most apartment rentals require a substantial deposit and there's the inevitable anxiety of sending money to a person or agency met only online.

Some agencies have basic concierge services, such as taxi bookings by phone, but an apartment lacks the convenience of a hotel concierge to help ease life's complications for a newcomer in town. Even finding some apartments can be a challenge; ask the agency or owner to send the address in the local language, or have someone meet you at a local landmark.

Decide what you or your party needs: if the absence of a concierge, for example, will leave you fumbling in the dark, then stick to a hotel.

Spend time on your homework; scour reviews from past tenants that are posted on some websites (I searched slowtrav.com and apartmentoski.com for Eastern European rentals).

Finding that perfect apartment can be hit and miss. A one-bedroom apartment I rented last year in the Polish city of Krakow looked terrific on the apartmentoski.com website but it was cold and dark and the bathroom was tiny.

It was, however, through the same website that I found Takis's apartment in Tallinn. A former attic with windows overlooking roofs and church spires, the three-bedroom renovated apartment is 100 square metres with sauna, spa bath, wood heater, fully equipped kitchen, large flat-screen television and secure wireless internet.

At €120 a night, it was exceptional value when you consider a 30-square-metre double room at the nearby Hotel St Petersbourg, with breakfast, daily maid service and turn down, is €108 a night. "After I have bad apartment experiences, I usually stick to hotels for a while" Takis says. "But I always go back. Apartments are just such better value."

Rise of the apart-hotel

ALMOST every hotel group worth its slippers is installing or promoting its serviced apartments. In prime city locations and with the amenities of a hotel, apartments represent superior value when considering dollars per square metre.

Citadines, formerly a French group that was bought by Singapore's Ascott group in 2002, has opened nine of its serviced apartment properties in the Asia Pacific region in the past two years, with a further 30 in the planning. A 398-room property, the company's largest, is planned for Bourke Street, Melbourne.

"We see a huge gap in the market for the Citadines model: urban residences with simple accommodation and limited user-pay facilities like internet, breakfast and daily cleaning," says the chief executive of the Ascott group's hospitality division, Gerald Lee. He compares this style of "apart-hotel" to a no-frills airline where passengers pay only for what they want.

Studio apartments at Citadines Sukhumvit Soi 8 (77 Sukhumvit Soi 8; www2.citadines.com) are in a dead-end lane off Bangkok's main thoroughfare. They cost 1740 baht ($63) a night with breakfast and broadband. Two-bedroom apartments are 3090 baht a night. They are basic but the modern, immaculate apartments are fine for short stays, with well-equipped kitchens, rain showers, satellite television and bath tubs, as well as access to a communal gym, swimming pool, breakfast bar and laundry.

The longer you stay in an apartment, the better the deals become. Rent a 60-square-metre apartment for a month at the Westin Financial Street Beijing (9B Financial Street, Xicheng District; westin.com) and the tariff plummets to about 466 yuan ($84) a night. This is less than half the price of a 40-square-metre Westin hotel room. As well as access to the hotel restaurants and bars in the same building, apartment guests have their own lounge and gym, in-room kitchens (including an oven, which is like hen's teeth in China), laundry, 24-hour room service, satellite television, free broadband internet and Westin's custom-made Heavenly Bed.

"We have families who move in for years at a time," says Australian Li Ann Loo, who works for the Beijing Westin, as a tribe of children in school uniform files past to the lifts. "Guests get the best of both worlds: the privacy of an apartment block but the conveniences of the hotel."

You can often find apartments for the same price or cheaper than hotel rooms of the same name. A quick search on Marriott's website, for example, shows 65-square-metre apartments in Bangkok at Marriott Sathorn Vista (1 Sathorn Soi 3; +66 2 3436789; marriott.com) for 3300 baht a night, while 33-square-metre rooms at the J. W. Marriott (4 Sukhumvit Soi 2; +66 2 6567700) are 5900 baht, which is almost double the price for half the space.

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