BridgeStreet launches online travel agency for business travel

With this launch, the BridgeStreet supply partner community’s growing portfolio of unique living spaces – over 65,000 professionally managed serviced apartments and homes available in 60+ countries, providing experiences from economy to luxury – will be searchable on Bridgestreet.com while providing easy connectivity to the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) that have traditionally been difficult to access for this sector. The website will be available through many of the most prominent channel managers and accessible via the BX GDS code.  This is a unifying step that brings material improvements in revenue and supply and provides the industry with much needed transparency.Chief executive of BridgeStreet Global Hospitality, Sean Worker, said, “Our mission was to solve one of the industry’s most persistent problems – to simply offer wider choices across a range of price points and hospitality accommodation experiences ­with ease. Here we are uplifting the extended stay industry and, for the first time, giving Travel Managers and business exactly what they need: transparency, immediacy and unparalleled customisation.”Each supplier is thoroughly vetted, inspected, and must comply with a complete BridgeStreet Guarantee. Quality-assurance is through partnership with a global leader in quality management, ASAP accreditation and, ultimately, industry peer-to-peer reviews. 

Industry asset

Up to now, the process for booking extended stay products such as serviced apartment and homes had been laborious, primarily because properties were difficult to book and hard to compare. Bridgestreet.com removes those obstacles. Corporate travel managers will be able to easily program their travel guidelines onto customized portals, enabling employees to find the perfect space to fit their needs while remaining compliant with their company’s requirements.  Aaron Turner, chief technology officer of BridgeStreet said, “Consumers and guests shape technology. It is our job to try and keep up with their needs by directly influencing guests and making it easy for the travel managers. Companies like us will have to continue to focus on quality for the services they provide while adding more services and amenities and doing it faster and cheaper and better than anyone else.”

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Built-in demand

With this enhanced level of visibility, it gives serviced-apartment and home operators access to extensive global reach in addition to the demand from Bridgestreet’s 4000+ client portfolio and 100+ global sales team.Corporate travel companies, who have access to GDS, will be able to see a supply partner’s offerings and have access to a wide array of serviced apartments, homes, and extended-stay hotels. This immediately puts them on a level playing field with the industry’s major legacy hospitality players, whilst bridging the sharing economy with serviced apartments and homes.For related news and features, visit our Serviced Apartments section.Access hundreds of global services and suppliers in our Online Directory  Get access to our free Global Mobility Toolkit