Oakwood to set up second apartment

Oakwood Asia Pacific, a division of the Los Angeles headquartered Oakwood Worldwide, the largest chain of service apartments worldwide, will have its second service apartment in India by the end of this year.

Oakwood Premier, the 62-room service apartment, will come up at the Juhu beach in Mumbai and the company has entered into a partnership with Panchshil Realty for the purpose.

The company is also planning to have a service apartment in Hyderabad by 2008 and in Gurgaon and Chennai by 2009. Confirming the development, Veronique, GM, Oakwood India said, "We will launch our Oakwood Premier brand in Mumbai soon."

The Oakwood Premier luxury brand targets senior business executives, expatriates and higher income group clients. It will take the partnership route for expanding throughout India.

"Our target clientele in India include international visitors as well as domestic travellers, seeking four-star and five-star accommodations," added Veronique.

The company inaugurated its first service apartment property, Oakwood Residence, in Pune last week. This was a JV with Panchshil Realty. It has 84 single and double bedroom hall kitchen (BHK) apartments, priced at Rs 10,000 and Rs 14,000 respectively, for single night occupancy.

To meet the demand of the corporate travellers for a longer-duration stay, real estate and hospitality majors are seriously looking at the service apartment segment.

According to an estimate, Delhi and the National Capital Region alone will have over 1000 service apartments by 2008. Hotel majors such as Marriott International, Oberoi Group, Westin, Leela Group, Claridges and Crowne Plaza are planning service apartments in the region.

Oakwood Worldwide is a leading global provider of corporate housing and serviced apartments. It takes premium residential apartments and homes on lease, adds furnishings and then sublets the units to its guests.

It also manages more than 50 upscale housing complexes worldwide under the brand names of Oakwood Apartments, Oakwood Residences and Oakwood Premier.