Once upon a time, not so long ago, traveling was pretty straightforward. You booked a really expensive flight and a reasonably priced hotel. Then flights became much more affordable, but hotels became pretty pricey.
In recent years, both airlines and hotels significantly dropped their prices even more. The reason? Options. Low-cost carriers have upended the market, making domestic and international air travel a mass market product. You can now pick a flight from many offered by dozens of different airlines.
The hotel industry got hit with a curveball – competition from a completely new player: the vacation apartment. All of a sudden apartments all over the globe were being offered to travelers as a whole new accommodation option.
Travelers, both leisure and business ones, embraced their newfound freedom of selection. The shifting preferences of today’s travelers indicate that the apartment-option is the winning one. And for very good reasons. Five very good reasons.
Prime Locations
When selecting an apartment, you can pretty much stay exactly where you want to. As another significant shift in preferences points to wanting a local experience rather than a ‘touristy’ one, many hotels’ locations – within the tourist hot-spots – seem less attractive.
Apartments are everywhere; that’s just a fact of life. You can find apartments in every neighborhood of every city. All you need to do is choose the neighborhood you wish to stay in. Again, this is about options, the hot commodity of the 21st century.
Privacy & Independence
Not that we have anything to hide, but we all seem to prefer some privacy in our vacations. We crave that alone time (with our significant other, family or friends) and that includes not spending your vacation between two rooms with other vacationers in them.
It’s about having a front door, not just a door.
Staying in an apartment also gives you a feeling of independence that’s missing from the hotel experience. It’s not that you can’t come and go as you please when staying in a hotel, and it’s not that like there’s a curfew but still – you are bound by the hotel’s schedule and rules.
What if you want to have breakfast at 5:30am, or 11:15? What if you don’t want a bizarrely small bottle of Coke Zero but feel like Diet Coke in a can?
We circle back to having options – having the freedom to be incognito and the opportunity to choose exactly what you want, not settle for what there is.
Style & Design
Kudos to boutique hotels for breaking away from the hotel-design pattern of carpeted floors and really heavy, hard-to-pull curtains. Many hotels are remarkably designed but they’re still styled as what they are – hotels.
A hotel is a place you stay in. An apartment is a place you live in. And that influences the design and styling in an unmistakable fashion.
In addition to the fact that each apartment is uniquely designed (we won’t mention ‘options’ again…), when a place is designed for living, even for short-term, it naturally takes on the quality of a home.
Ideal for Families & Groups
If you ever stayed with kids in a hotel, you know what we’re talking about. You’re on vacation, you want, nay – you deserve, some alone time. Your kids deserve it too, by the way. After spending all day together, it can be refreshing – for everyone – not to sleep in the same space.
When it comes to traveling as a group of friends, it’s exactly the opposite. Instead of retiring to separate rooms in the evening, you can continue your enjoy each other’s company in the living room; you can also cook dinner together, or just hang out in the balcony with a bottle of wine.
Longer Term Vacations
After a few days, the stay in a hotel room gets tiring. The mini-fridge starts haunting your dreams and you start asking yourself – are all linens in the world white? But seriously, hotel rooms were meant for short-term and they’re mainly designed for functionality; life is more than a series of functions.
If you’re planning a longer vacation, you’ll want to be able to stretch your legs, to fry an egg, to fall asleep on a sofa. You’ll want to live the place you’re visiting, to experience it to the fullest and that’s where apartments fit in; they are the perfect choice for a local experience.
Obviously, we’re biased. But with good reason. Four years ago we could have chosen to open a hotel. We chose to go with vacation apartments instead since we realized this was the best option for accommodation for all types of travelers.
We didn’t leave it at that. We wanted to provide a unique hospitality experience for our guests, even though they are staying in different apartments in various locations throughout the city. And we’ve succeeded.
Sweet Inn offers its guests the opportunity to stay in an apartment and be treated like a hotel guest, with all that it entails. We offer personalized services to make your stay a unique one and local teams who cater to your needs. Your vacation with us will be pampering and hassle-free, exactly like it should be.
Looking for a unique and stylish vacation? Book now.
