Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels

What is a hotel chain 2.0?

In a nutshell, Smartflats manages a portfolio of furnished accommodations in prime locations in Brussels and Liège. Yet, Smartflats does not see itself as a typical rental agency, but rather as a hotel chain 2.0.

In fact, Smartflats addresses a niche market between traditional hotels and their current alternatives, such as apart-hotels and bed & breakfasts.

In today’s hospitality market, travellers mainly have the choice between:

• Hotels (of various categories) providing extended services, such as 24/7 access, concierge, minibar and room service etc. (handy as these services may be, they often are standardized and costly);
• Apart-hotels and bed and breakfasts that often provide more intimate housing and personalised interactions with hosts, at good value for money (but the experience may be rather unpredictable and comes with limitations, such as limited slots for checking in).

Smartflats’ ambition is to offer its guests the best of these two worlds:

• Like hotels (and unlike typical rental agencies), every Smartflats’ accommodation can be booked for one night only;
• Like hotel chains, Smartflats has several units with consistent quality standards in terms of interior design, location, amenities and services.
• 2.0, because through the use of smart technologies, Smartlats is able to offer an extended range personalised services. For instance, intercoms allow remote control of the doors and voice interactions with incoming guests.

Where does Smartflats come from?

Smartftlats was co-founded by Tarik Hennen (a former European competition lawyer with a taste for interior design and entrepreneurship) and Alexandre Szmaj (a real estate professional and account manager of Portic a real estate web portal).

Tarik initially opened a first bed & breakfast (Brugmann Garden – www.brugmanngarden.be) while participating to the second MIC Brussels Boostcamp to develop a booking platform dedicated to bed & breakfasts and aparthotels.

During the programme and thanks to the coaching dispensed at the Boostcamp, the initial project evolved and Tarik partnered with Alexandre to develop a full-blown chain of own accommodations (rather than offering services to owners): Smartflats was born and eventually won the Brussels-Capital Region Prize.

As it appeared, it may been easier to develop innovative products and services from the scratch, rather than providing services aimed at improving those of third parties.

Where is Smartflats today?

Today, Smartflats operates a total of 10 units. By the end of the first quarter of 2013, Smartflats plans to increase its portfolio up to 20 units.

Since last October, hundreds of guests stayed in Smartflats’ properties and left excellent reviews on booking engines. Smartflats also attracted attention from the media (Télé Bruxelles and Trends Tendances) and will be named start-up of the month by BECI. Smartflats is very grateful for having been put into the spotlight after the Boostcamp.

What’s next for Smartflats?

From January 2013 onwards, Smartflats will develop a web app (currently expected to run on Windows 8 ) and make it available to its guests both on their smartphones and on wall-mounted tablets in each locations. Again, Smartflats will benefit from the support of MIC Brussels who will supervise a trainee developer who will join Smartflats early next year.

Through the launch of this application, Smartflats intends to deliver seamlessly a range of prime hotel services, such as one-click concierge calls or taxi orders, recommendations (of restaurants and activities), minibar orders etc.

Smartflats is confident that the combination of attractive properties and enabling ICT technologies will pave the way for a brand new kind of property rentals chain not only Belgium, but also abroad (plans are on-going for openings in Canada and Asia).