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Travel

Cash in on a home away from home

By Nick Easen for CNN

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Many hotels are realizing contemporary design and excellent service can also make a difference.
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(CNN) -- Some business travelers spend so much time in a hotel, they might as well put down a deposit and buy the room they are staying in -- it could prove more economical.

And now the chance exists. A new property concept is available in London that allows executives who regularly visit the city to buy a hotel room.

Businesses and potential guests can then stay up to 52 nights a year when they visit the UK capital on short trips.

For the remainder of the year, owners get a return on their investment by allowing the hotel to let the room out to other guests.

Guesthouse West in Notting Hill charges from $181 a night, but if you like the room enough to buy it, then the price tag is $431,000.

"The last few years have seen business travel budgets cut dramatically, so corporations are always on the lookout for ways in which to make cost savings," Johnny Sandelson of Guesthouse West told CNN.

"They do not want to have to buy a property to cater for their trips, but equally they do not want to pay a fortune on regular hotel bills."

On purchasing the room, a buyer is charged only $18 a night for a stay, and pockets half the takings when the hotel lets it out.

Each room has an en-suite bathroom and a full complement of modern conveniences, from air conditioning and broadband access to a DVD player and a television.

This concept may also prove popular with executives who currently use cheaper serviced apartments on a long-term basis in London.

Guesthouse West expects between a five and seven percent return on the money invested in the property. The rooms are also expecting to sell out by mid May.

"We have had a lot of interest from corporations in the UK and further afield, who need to stay in London on a regular basis," explains Sandelson.

The company also plans to take the concept to other UK and European cities popular with business travelers.

"(This) is one of the most innovative things to happen in the hotel property market in recent years and will have a major impact on the financing of hotels," Peter Gee of TRi Hospitality Consulting told The Times newspaper.

Time for a change

Many business travelers, bored with staying for long periods in bland and regimented hotel rooms, are looking for something different.

Serviced apartments are upgrading their facilities and boutique hotels are springing up in major cities to meet this demand.

Poor decoration with minimal service is giving way to smaller intimate enterprises full of contemporary design and a willingness to meet the needs of guests.

Examples include the newly opened JIA, designed by Philippe Starck and Le Meridien, to Cyberport in Hong Kong and Zetter in East London.

"I feel that hotels in the next ten years will undergo a radical change," says Fraser Hickox of the Peninsula Hotel group in Hong Kong.

"I am watching the swing towards "cool" hotels, pioneered by W hotels and others."


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