The business travel industry has been growing ever since its inception. Aside from a hiatus during the pandemic, it has experienced steady growth.
The growth is mainly down to its inherent advantages of corporate housing over the alternatives and the cost savings organizations can benefit from.
Corporate housing offers more for less, keeps business travel interesting by offering alternatives to bland hotel rooms and adds more space, privacy and convenience.
We all know the main benefits of corporate housing, but there are other equally important ones that don’t always come up in a cost-benefit analysis.
That’s what we’re discussing today.
We’re going to outline some of the lesser-known benefits of corporate housing for business travel.
Live where locals live
When you go on vacation, do you stay in the tourist areas or like to see the real destination? Do you only eat in chain restaurants or want to experience local food that local people enjoy?
We’re the latter and we bet you are too.
So why stay in chain hotels, in predictable areas when you work away?
One key advantage of corporate housing is that it can be located anywhere. You can certainly stay in tourist or business areas and never leave if you want.
You can also live where the locals live to get a much more authentic experience.
It’s a definite upside to working away from home and can go a long way to overcoming the usual downsides of being away from loved ones or having to work in a strange city.
Work from home if you want to
Many hotel rooms will have a desk area and a chair, but they are rarely conducive to working from ‘home’.
While you’re mainly working away to be at the office or workplace, there may be times when you need peace and quiet. That’s when working from home can help.
Stay in corporate housing and you’ll have as much space to yourself as you like. Some rentals will have a den or home office, some will have a dining table to spread out on.
All will have fast internet and the space to relax and breathe while you plan, work, revise or do whatever you need to do.
Share space with colleagues
Traveling with a team or with work colleagues? Need to prepare for an exam, revise or come up with a plan? Sharing a space with them can seriously help.
We often work with teams that will work in a destination office but will then need space to work at home, together.
Hotel rooms don’t usually have that kind of space, but corporate housing does.
Sit around the dining table together. Sit in the lounge over the coffee table, sit in the garden or on the balcony, it’s entirely up to you.
What you get with corporate housing is the freedom to work how you want, when you want, with whom you want.
Do more with less
We often work with consultants, project managers, contractors and others who need to work away from home. They won’t be part of a corporation. They may be freelancers, contractors or work for a
small business without an HR or travel specialist on staff.
Working with Blu overcomes that challenge.
You don’t need an HR department or someone to manage your travel plans as we can do it for you.
We can help identify and secure your corporate housing, make the booking, arrange utilities, manage repairs and manage everything about your stay.
All you have to do is get there and arrange the payment. We’ll take care of everything else!
All the comforts of home
Taking nothing away from hotels, they do have their downsides. That’s especially true when you’re staying there for a month or more.
Those four walls soon begin closing in and you lament the lack of space, room to relax, to have friends round and to sit and enjoy the sunshine.
All things corporate housing can provide.
Corporate housing is typically high-end apartments, penthouses, family homes, townhomes and other property types.
They are not single rooms amongst hundreds of other single rooms.
You get all the space that comes with the property. You get different rooms, separate bedroom and lounge, perhaps a dining room, your own kitchen, balcony or even a garden.
All things that can transform the experience.
Break the monotony
If you or your staff travel often, breaking the monotony of the same old hotel rooms can be huge.
The same four walls, the same bland color schemes, the same single serving soaps and shower gels, the same dark hallways and the same sights and sounds every time can get very boring very quickly.
While professionals adapt, if you can mitigate against that, all the better.
You’ll find it much more satisfying staying in different places with a different feel whenever you travel.
The psychological benefits are huge and can make a genuine difference to staff motivation.
Pet friendly accommodation
Not everyone wants to travel with their pets, but if you do, you’ll find corporate housing is flexible enough to work with that.
Very few hotels will accept pets and those that do tend to reserve the oldest, scruffiest rooms for them.
Many corporate housing options will accept many types of pets. There may be size or breed restrictions imposed by the building or development, but otherwise, you can travel with your pet if you want to.
Whether it’s an assistance dog or just some company while you work away, pets are incredibly important to us, so why wouldn’t you want them with you when you travel?