Amid an increased cost of living, consumers are seeking out quality accommodation offerings at affordable prices. Hotel development experts share some of their key findings across the budget, economy and midscale segments.
EVT’s Lylo Managing Director, Tim Alpe, discusses rising demand for budget accommodation.
The irrepressible desire to travel is alive, as strong as ever. Across EVT, we are seeing hotel bookings stabilise as business travellers and tourists search for out of the ordinary experiences across our portfolio, which covers all segments from luxury to budget.
More recently, we are seeing a new community of travellers being driven by two key factors; affordability and evolved travel needs. Travellers are combining work and leisure for extended periods of time, all whilst travelling on a budget.
As a result, budget accommodation is seeing growth. In December 2022, EVT launched Lylo Auckland, the first budget lifestyle property to open in New Zealand post-Covid and a new way to stay. Lylo is our style-led, value offering, designed for the modern traveller who wants to play, eat, work, and sleep – within a budget.
To meet these evolving market needs, we focused on more POD rooms and redesigned the POD experience, created well-equipped co-working spaces, communal kitchens for meal preparation and lounges to relax on at night. Whilst traditionally this style of accommodation has been popular with the youth market, a far more diverse range of guests are now staying at Lylo, with long-term stays (over a month) increasing, and strong room booking volumes, especially over the summer period.
Lylo is changing the budget accommodation offering, and continuing to expand to meet this increased demand, with Lylo now open in Queenstown and Christchurch, and extending to Brisbane, Australia later this year.