Shanghai's service apartments: Product,pricing and competition

In 1998, a total of 18 existing service apartments have been identified in Shanghai, with about a third being luxurious service apartments. The majority of the service apartments were built within the last two years. A luxurious service apartment provides hotel‐like facilities, coupled with a home‐away‐from‐home atmosphere for long‐stay guests. Typically, comprised of one or more, bedrooms, a kitchen equipped with all conceivable household appliances and many other conveniences, guests also enjoy housekeeping and laundry service packages. Shanghai, with a population of over 15 million, has made great progress in its modernization efforts, and is fast catching up to become a financial center of Asia. The foreign investors, expatriate personnel and their families constitute the potential demand for luxurious service apartment as a major type of lodging facilities in Shanghai. This paper presents a research study to identify the marketing strategies of luxurious service apartments in Shanghai. To uncover the characteristics of their operations and their clients, two surveys are conducted, one on the existing service apartments and the other on their users.