Corporate housing supplier Furnished Quarters during the
past several months has expanded its sales staff as it grows its inventory and
revenues.
Most recently, the company added former Bridgestreet sales
manager Victoria Yanakos as senior corporate sales manager based in Furnished
Quarters' New York office and corporate sales managers Diane Mulligan, based in
the Massachusetts office, and Denise Tomasetti in New York. Early this year,
the company appointed hospitality marketing veteran Robin
Spindel as director of marketing and former Interstate Hotels & Resorts
executive Brian Owen Terry as vice president of operations.
"We're not only growing by staff but also by
apartments," Spindel said, noting the company's portfolio now includes
about 1,200 units. "Our coverage is great in the New York City area, which
includes New Jersey, Connecticut and Westchester, and we're going through
expansion up in the Boston/Cambridge area."
As the résumés of Mulligan, Tomasetti,
Spindel and Terry indicate, Furnished Quarters is turning to the hotel industry
as it bulks up sales and marketing teams.
"Many of our competitors don't have the core with a
hospitality background, and that is crucial in being successful when continuing
to grow and expand," Terry said. "An experience that represents a
comfortable, safe environment with services provided that are very similar to
what they would experience in an extended-stay experience with another
hospitality company is very important to our clients."
As it adds staff and units, Furnished Quarters also is about
midway through a redesign of all 200 Boston-area apartments, for which it uses
an in-house design studio. It expects that project to be completed by the
spring of 2014.
Because corporate housing remains an untapped or poorly
understood segment within several industries, Furnished Quarters' sales staff
has been working to diversify its client list, Spindel said. High-growth
segments of late have included entertainment, advertising and public relations,
healthcare and financial services, still rebounding after the 2008 economic
downturn, she said.
"Over the next four or five years, we're going to
continue to see major corporations begin to understand the legitimacy and
financial impact of being able to use corporate housing versus hotels,"
Terry said.
While corporate housing management traditionally has not
always been a function of the travel department, Spindel said she increasingly
is "seeing a lot of consolidation at the companies we call on." As
that consolidation continues, Terry said he expected corporate housing to be
added to more corporate travel sites and presented as an alternative to hotels.
Corporate clients also have been asking for an easier
booking process, Spindel said. To that end, she explained that Furnished
Quarters is working with a private-labeled booking tool that "has been
operating in a number of our clients, and we're rolling that out to others."