With business back in full swing, we have returned to trying to find hotel or motel rooms across the country when there are fewer spaces and more people looking.
It’s one of the many areas of business where resources are scarce, but demand has increased. Fortunately, this challenge has a simple solution.
Rather than competing for overpriced hotel or motel rooms for staff, use corporate rentals instead.
You get more for less, have more flexibility in location and availability and deliver a more homely space for staff for longer stays.
It’s the answer many businesses are looking for and it’s right here.
Housing for traveling staff
Staff need to travel and be accommodated for a multitude of reasons. Training, office moves, relocations, change of duty station, projects and so many more reasons.
It could be a permanent relocation or change of station. It could be for training, development, secondment, temporary loan or something else.
It could be for a few days, a month, many months or over a year.
Different organizations have different needs and Blu Corporate Housing can cater to them all. As long as you’re staying for 28 days or more, we can help.
We work with government agencies, enterprise, Fortune 500 companies, insurance companies, medical centers, universities, the construction industry, oil and gas industries and anyone who needs high quality, low cost accommodation for a month or more.
Here are three real life examples of how Blu helped a company rehome staff.
Oil and gas workers
A leading oil and gas firm wanted to house a drill team near Austin, Texas for a period 6 months. They didn’t want a bunkhouse and didn’t want a cheap motel.
They also didn’t want to pay hotel prices or risk Airbnb.
Blu was able to find a family home with 6 bedrooms a few miles south of Austin. It had a driveway, garage, spacious lounge and kitchen and 3 bathrooms.
Everyone had their own private space and enough bathrooms to minimize any delays.
The team could also park their trucks on the driveway and had the run of the house and garden. It was the ideal solution that delivered cost savings for the company and more space for the team.
Project team
A well-known cloud solutions provider needed to house their project manager in Palo Alto to oversee an infrastructure upgrade program.
The company wanted somewhere close to the project site and local stores and amenities. They also didn’t know how long they would need the accommodation for as the project could go over schedule.
We sourced a fully furnished apartment in the city center, close to shopping, dining and entertainment and close to the office. It had private parking so their car was safe and had all the comforts of home.
We were also able to arrange the apartment with a rolling monthly contract to help the company manage their schedule without setting a strict time limit.
Army squad
An army team needed to be near Fort Hood for extended training but didn’t want to stay on base. The accommodation needed to be close enough to be convenient but cheap enough to stay within per diem rates.
The team were training over 3 months and ideally wanted to be accommodated together. This ruled out hotels due to cost and proximity, but Blu found them a single family home less than 10 minutes from the gates.
The team could travel together, stay together and eat together, just like they would in the field.
All within the price limitations of government housing rates.
Cost effectiveness
One of the downsides of a market economy is when demand increases, so do prices. Even when there’s no reason for it, you’ll always see prices rise along with demand.
That’s what we’re seeing with hotels right now.
The vacation market is back to normal and so is the business travel sector. We are seeing more demand than any time in the last 3 years and it shows no signs of slowing down.
So, you have a choice.
You can pay more for no good reason or you could pay less for a very good reason.
We know which we would choose!
It’s the same choice thousands of companies are making all the time.
On average, a corporate apartment costs anywhere between 40-80% less than a comparable hotel room for stays of 30 days or more.
All while giving more space, more privacy, (often) more amenities and a lot more freedom to come and go as you please.
If you’re housing multiple staff at once, it makes even more sense as you can accommodate multiple team members within the same property!
Reliability and consistency
The majority of hotels in the United States are reliable and offer decent quality accommodation. But you have to manage everything yourself.
There is also a difference between chains and between locations.
Use alternatives like Airbnb for Work or some of the other newer services and consistency goes right out the window!
While they make guarantees on overall standards, anyone who has stayed in Airbnb knows there can be a huge difference between what the listing promises and what you find when you get there!
Blu Corporate Housing inspects the vast majority of their corporate rentals and solicits feedback from clients to ensure all standards are maintained.
If accommodation falls below expectations, we won’t use it until those standards are met again.
It’s a simple system, but it works!
Freedom of choice
Blu has thousands of corporate rentals you can choose from, in almost every city in the country.
There are also thousands of hotels, but they are mainly in high traffic areas, close to airports, vacation spots or in industrial areas.
They aren’t always convenient for work, which is where corporate rentals come in.
The vast majority of rentals are standard apartments or townhomes leveled up to appeal to the business market.
They will be in Downtown areas, close to business or finance districts, close to hospitals or universities or wherever you need to be.
The sheer volume of properties on our books means wherever your staff are working or training, we’ll have accommodation close by.
If you prefer accommodation close to city centers or entertainment districts, no problem.
If you need to be close to a military base, university or medical district, no problem there either.
Wherever you need to be, or send staff, we have the reach to help.
Whether you’re relocating staff permanently or for extended stays for any reason, corporate rentals can help.
They provide all the comforts of home along with the space, privacy and convenience of your own house or apartment.
All for up to half the price of a hotel room for stays of 30 days or more.
If that doesn’t make perfect business sense, we don’t know what does!