Luxury serviced apartments such as Fraser Residence Budapest are gaining in popularity as the preferred choice of accommodation rather than a cramped hotel room, even a four-star-superior hotel room. Apartments offer such advantages as much more living space and a home-from-home experience with fully inclusive rates.
They are an attractive temporary housing solution, whether for business people who are flat-hunting while relocating to an area, as a stop-gap for locals when moving home or simply as an ideal leisure time get-away for people on holiday.
Serviced apartments therefore include all of the convenience of hotel rooms but can be less expensive, especially for longer stayers. One reckoning is that apartments are typically around 30 percent cheaper when you compare all the added extras charged by hotels.
With a rising trend for longer-stay international travel, and a corresponding increase in the level of sophistication of international travellers, interest in serviced apartments has risen at the expense of hotels and bed-and-breakfasts for both short and extended stays.
At Fraser Residence Budapest a French family holds the record for longest stay: 12 months. There are 50 apartments in the nine-storey building. Nine are studio size, about 35 square metres, which compares nicely with the regular hotel size of 20-25 square metres. The 28 one-bedroom apartments are 40-45 square metres, 11 two-bedroom apartments are 70-75 square metres and there are two three-bedroom penthouses of 135 square metres. About 90 percent have terraces overlooking the garden or to watch the world go by and maybe smoke a ciggie.
They all have open-plan separate living and dining areas so you can work, sleep, relax and entertain at your leisure in comfortable, homely surroundings. And there are the aforementioned kitchenettes, stylish and kitted out with all the modern appliances and essentials – microwave, fridge/freezer, toaster, electric jug and the rest – to allow you to cook your own meals or dine in with friends.
A Kuwaiti family who have a three-week holiday in Budapest each year always stay at the Fraser Residence and always cook up Middle Eastern food in their kitchenette. Then they take some dishes, plus a few little gifts from home, down to the Fraser offices for the staff, who they have come to know and like. It wouldn’t happen in a “normal” hotel, where a stay is more likely to be three days than three weeks, and there isn’t usually a kitchenette in the room.
At Fraser Residence, king-size beds, DVD players to go along with the flat-screen 40-channel TVs, safes, irons, hairdriers, individual air-conditioning and iPhone dockers (doubling as music players) are standard. Above studio size there is a washing machine/drier to save on laundry costs and often separate shower and bathtub, and two TVs. Beds have two mattresses so that partners don’t get bumped around in the night, unless they want to be bumped around in the night.
To all intents and purposes, Fraser Residence is just like a four-star-superior hotel – but with more space and comfort – and it has 24-hour reception and concierge service, secure parking, breakfast lounge with continental buffet and heated terrace, laundry, maintenance and a nearby 3000-square-metre fitness-wellness centre with swimming pool and saunas and preferential rates for Fraser guests.
Free and efficient Wi-Fi connections throughout mean you can work and play under one roof. And daily housekeeping replenishes the linen and towels to keep your apartment clean and tidy.
Fraser Residence is at Corvin-negyed, a burgeoning and bustling part of the city with the rare sight of towering yellow construction cranes and sound of workmen as new office buildings, apartment blocks and shops push out and up to rejuvenate this section of District VIII. A new Nokia headquarters is part-built and Google has an education centre. There is the Corvin Plaza shopping centre and the lively pedestrian mall outside has a casino and enough restaurants and coffee shops to eat and drink to bursting point.
Built in 2010-11 and opening in 2011, Fraser Residence quickly chalked up a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence in 2012, repeating the accolade in the following three years, with TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards added in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Also they have been named Hungary’s Leading Serviced Apartments by World Travel Award in the past three years.
Frasers Hospitality is a Singapore-based company with gold-standard apartments in London, Paris, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Edinburgh, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Sydney, Seoul and many other locations: more than 130 in all. This year there will be openings in Berlin, Abuja, Gurgaon, Kunming and Yangon. Next year: Balikpapan, Dalian, Hamburg, Hefei, Johor Bahru, Tokyo and others
The company’s different brands are Fraser Suites, Fraser Residence, Fraser Place, Capri by Fraser, Modena by Fraser and the recently acquired boutique luxury chains in the UK, Hotel du Vin and Malmaison Hotels.
The worldwide presence means the backing to establish a good reputation and standards can be kept up, plus there is a Best Rate Guarantee to ensure guests find more attractive rates than at any online booking agency. Regular stayers can get a discount or an upgrade and there are offers such as last-minute 15 percent reductions, spring specials with 10 percent off for a mimimum two-night stay and weekday specials that give 13 percent off if you arrive between Sunday and Thursday.
For business people at Fraser Residence Budapest there are two meeting rooms available in the two penthouse suites, with large private rooftop terrace.
Stuntmen and film crews are often in residence for three months or so as Budapest continues to attract overseas movie-makers, including production personnel from “Asterix”, “Die Hard” or “The Martian” lately. They enjoy what is called the “Fraser Difference”, described by the growing company as “the epitome of the countless awards and accolades we have bagged to date for our serviced apartments worldwide. Besides our luxury residences, our attention to detail is what distinguishes Frasers Hospitality from the rest. Every customer’s touchpoint and every customer’s encounter are met with service intuition that has become our trademark.”
Fraser Residence Budapest
Nagytemplom utca 31, District VIII
Tel.: (+36-1) 872-5900
Email:
sales.budapest@frasershospitality.com
Web:
budapest.frasershospitality.com/en