Chris Hughes and Keith Bishop, Directors of Flexi-lets, gave us their thoughts on the serviced apartment sector and revealed a strange situation in one of their apartments.
What changes do you see happening in the serviced apartment sector in the next five years? Do Flexi-lets have any plans to expand into new areas?
I only see growth. As more and more people hear about the industry, more people are choosing to use serviced apartments. In the next five years, we’ll see vast expansion as a lot of hotel groups will start to create purpose-built serviced apartment units. An increase in aparthotel development is specifically how I see the serviced apartment industry growing. We’re exploring all kinds of areas and looking at deeper established relationships with our corporate clients, as well as offering a range of services on top of what we already do.
We’ve found that clients are increasingly interested in knowing about the internet speeds and packages that come with their bookings. Is this something that you’ve experienced and if so, how much information are you able to provide?
We’ve found that with quite a few enquiries recently. Where there are some countries with such superfast internet speeds we’ve found that when they come to the UK they say there is a problem with our internet, when there’s none. We offer typical internet speeds of around eight megabyte, and some of our clients are from places where one hundred megabyte internet speeds come as standard, which understandably is difficult to contend with.
What’s the strangest request you’ve ever had from a client?
We had one guy from London who wanted to propose to his girlfriend at one of our properties in Camberley. When the maids arrived the next day, he hadn’t cleared up after himself and there were hundreds of rose petals all the way from the door, through the hall way, in the bath tub and in the bed. There were candles and fairy lights all over the place. They were everywhere! Strangely, “Cupid” had bought her a Mcdonalds for dinner. Romance and fast food wasn’t a combination we’d ever thought of. He did pay us extra for the trouble though.
Quick fire:
Golf or Cricket? Golf
Blonde or Brunette? Blonde
Top Gear or Towie? Top Gear
From their answers, we suspect Chris and Keith not only work together, but play the same sport, date the same women and watch the same TV programmes on a Sunday night.
