Columnist

Are short-term lets the future of business trips?

Whatever type of business you’re in and wherever you’re based, the odd business trip to London is often par for the course. If this sounds like you, you’re certainly not alone.

Official figures for 2011 show that business visitors to London made a total of 13,157 overnight stays in the Capital. This accounted for a total of 14% of all stays in the city, with individual travellers staying an average of 4.4 days in the city.

That’s a long time to stay in any run-of-the-mill hotel but now a new start-up is offering an innovative alternative to the standard hotel accommodation. Kippsy describes itself as an online community that “strives to match those with available properties with visitors that wish to pay to stay in beautiful, homely accommodation in London”.

What this means for business travellers is a home away from home with all the professional services you need to find a workable stand-in office too.

Unless you pay the extra for a specialist suite, working from a hotel room is rarely a comfortable or productive experience. With noisy guests next door and mediocre furniture to use, working from a hotel can sometimes be more hassle than it’s worth. Moving your operations downstairs to the lobby or reception room are often equally futile.

This is where alternatives such as Kippsy come into play. They provide a wide range of London apartments and other properties to suit all tastes, budgets and requirements. If you need a fully-equipped office complete with free Wi-Fi, simply make that part of your search. If you’d like an onsite gym or concierge services, that too can be arranged.

The site can also offer accommodation in a variety of locations spread across the city. The West End is all very well if you want to take in a show but there may be times when it’s more important to be close to your centre of operations.

Whether that’s Ealing in the West, Greenwich in the South, Shoreditch in the East or Camden in the North, you can rent a property wherever you need to be

Kippsy is still relatively new to the market but it already has more than 300 properties on its lists. And, as landlords and private property owners realise the potential benefits of secure short-term lets, it only looks set to grow over the coming months and years.

For guests, the company offers properties that are, it says, an average of 30% cheaper than a hotel of an equivalent standard. If you’ve ever stayed in a characterless chain hotel in the city, the added charms of a unique, well-maintained home-from-home in the city need little explanation.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Peter Rivers .