CapitaLand’s lodging business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott) has launched its ‘Work in Residence’ initiative at participating properties worldwide.
The Work in Residence scheme aims to transform selected apartments into conducive work suites for guests, corporates and students seeking alternative location to work-from-home or study within over 60 participating properties in more than 30 cities and over 10 countries.
The apartments are available for daily, weekly or monthly packages. Depending on the length of use and location, the work suites come with a dedicated workstation, regular housekeeping, complimentary coffee and tea or complimentary parking at selected serviced residences. High-speed WiFi, wide-screen monitors, webcams for videoconferencing and Bluetooth speakers with microphones are available on demand.
Participating properties in the UK include Citadines Barbican London, Citadines Trafalgar Square London, Citadines Holborn Covent-Garden London, Citadines South Kensington London and Citadines Islington London (opening August 2020).
Ascott will also be providing its ‘Space-as-a-Service’ by exploring different possibilities to optimise the use of space in its properties with multinational corporations (MNCs), entrepreneurs and small-medium enterprises (SMEs). These range from hosting cloud kitchens and Starbucks coffee kiosks, to organising live streaming or fitness activities in its apartments, and serving as parcel collection hubs for convenient pick-up of online orders.
Kevin Goh, CapitaLand’s CEO for lodging and Ascott’s CEO, said: “Ascott’s strengths in the long-stay segment have bolstered our resilience against headwinds from the COVID-19 situation. Our record of securing 25 new properties in the first five months of 2020 as well as the addition of six new lyf properties in July are testament to the strong demand for our expertise and products.
“To ensure that Ascott remains a dominant lodging player in the new normal, we must be agile, continually adapt and develop new business strategies to future-ready our company. We are evolving our lodging products and services to cater to new customer segments, uncover alternative revenue streams as well as deliver greater value for our guests and business partners.”
Mr Leong Teng Wui, Ascott’s Chief Development Officer, said: “With the launch of Ascott’s ‘Work in Residence’, we are seizing opportunities on the rising telecommuting trend to offer a comprehensive solution for guests to live and work in a safe and private space. Ascott’s award-winning interior design service team[1] will work with the properties and owners to leverage our deep design capabilities to reconfigure and customise Ascott’s spacious apartments, to not only provide a home away from home, but also create a conducive, productive and well-designed workspace for our guests.
“Through Ascott’s ‘Space-as-a-Service’, we are exploring ways to offer more services to guests while further optimising the use of space at our properties and capitalising on our properties’ adaptability and central locations to further grow Ascott’s business. This adaptive use of space and menu of new services will create an even more productive, conducive and stimulating environment for our guests to live, work, play and innovate in our properties.”
