Ascott voted world's leading serviced apartment brand
Garnered 110 awards to date in 2013; Scheduled to open 57 properties over the next few years
Singapore, 2 December 2013 – CapitaLand’s wholly-owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott), has been named the ‘World's Leading Serviced Apartment Brand’ at the 2013 World Travel Awards held in Doha, Qatar. The prestigious World Travel Awards, hailed as the ‘Oscars of the travel industry’, honour the best travel and hospitality companies that push the boundaries of product and service excellence. Winners were voted by travellers and travel professionals worldwide.
This latest award tops the list of 110 coveted accolades that Ascott has received to date in 2013, cementing its position as the global serviced residence industry leader. Last year, Ascott received a total of 79 awards.
Ascott is currently scheduled to open properties in the key gateway cities of China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam over the next few years. This year, through investment and management contracts, Ascott has added 22 properties with more than 3,700 apartment units to its portfolio. Ascott also entered into cities such as Hefei, Nanjing and Wuxi in China, Gurgaon in India, Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Sri Racha in Thailand. The new properties bring the company closer to its target of having 40,000 apartment units globally by 2015.
Ascott has invested in a number of initiatives to enhance customer experience across different touch points. Besides ongoing refurbishment for its properties in Asia Pacific and Europe, the company has begun offering free internet access this year to meet the increasing data demand by residents.
In addition, Ascott has introduced new web and mobile booking features to enable an easier and faster search by customers for its properties. These encompass a citywide search function that allows customers to view all available properties in a city, and filters to help them narrow down available apartments according to their needs. Customers can also perform a multi-city, multi-property or multi-apartment booking within a single reservation process.
Besides the World Travel Awards, Ascott won top accolades at the 2013 Business Traveller Awards. It took the titles of ‘Best Serviced Residence Brand’ in China and Asia Pacific, and ‘Best Serviced Apartment Company’ in the United Kingdom. Ascott also became the first serviced residence company to be conferred the