There are lots of reasons why people come and stay in our gorgeous serviced apartments. Many are relocating to the area and need short-term accommodation while they find their feet and somewhere more permanent to live. Some of our guests need a stop-gap, somewhere to stay while their own home is being renovated, or if they can't move into their new house straight away, or occasionally if they're having problems and need a home away from home for a while.

Why do our guests stay with us rather than in a hotel? There are lots of reasons for that!

The serviced apartment market has seen a huge amount of growth in the last few years. Since 2008, the number of serviced apartments around the world has seen an almost 80% increase, which means that there are roughly 800,000 short-term properties in nearly 10,000 locations worldwide.

Here in the UK, the last two years have seen massive growth, our sector has been expanding faster than any other in the UK hospitality market. And a whopping 60% of businesses now use serviced apartments when their staff relocate or travel because employees much prefer staying in a flat or house to being in a hotel.

We thought it would be interesting to find out why our guests love short-term rentals so much, so we asked them! This is what we discovered...

• Guests love being able to have their own kitchen to cook in. When you stay in a hotel you have to eat out all the time, which sounds like fun but after a few days it gets boring and unhealthy, not to mention expensive.
• Our visitors like having more space than they'd get in one room, whether they're staying on their own, with a partner or their family.
• They also enjoy the freedom of having their own space, they can come and go as they please, there is nothing and no one they have to fit in with. The cleaners come at a convenient time, there are no special eating times and everything is completely flexible.
• The community was mentioned several times too. When they arrive, guests often don't know anyone in the local area but they quickly feel part of West Bridgford and make friends at the nearest pub or at the gym. 
• With a serviced apartment you get a whole home – not just a bedroom, a bathroom, and a counter-top for a kitchen so guests don't have to sit on their beds to watch TV or use their laptops!
• Another thing they mentioned is that a serviced apartment is home from home so guests feel able invite friends round. Which you wouldn't do in a hotel room!
• They also mentioned being close to all the shops, cafes and restaurants on Central Avenue in West Bridgford, and one guest said that she loves the Farmers' Market on the Croquet Lawn!
• Some of our more active guests like being able to run along the river – not so easy from city hotels.
• The Pink Army – our wonderful team of cleaners who take care of all of our housekeeping – was cited by several people as a great bonus of staying in a serviced apartment.
• City centre hotels rarely have parking, and if they do they charge for it whereas all of our properties have free parking right outside – was brought up by several people.
• And lastly, people relocating to the area really like being able to explore and experience West Bridgford for a few months to get to know the area with a view to living here long-term.

There are heaps of reasons why people love serviced apartments so much, which explains why the sector is growing so quickly. We're thrilled to be able to be part of that growth and provide our wonderful guests with a luxurious home from home.

To find out more about our short-term lets or to book your stay and find out what all the fuss is about, feel free to contact us.
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Way before we decided to Brexit, Londoners have been waking up in their mid-thirties and realising that they could move somewhere other than the South East, cash in on the equity in the house and introduce their children to fresh air, a buzzing lifestyle and a great education. Even this week in the Sunday Times Martina Lees was singing the praises of doing exactly that.

Here in Nottingham, we have long been used to large corporates relocating here (Capital One and Reuters Hub to name just a couple of recent ones) as well as our well-known homegrown big hitters like Experian, Boots, and Speedo. 

Well, I've written about this before, many times, and I don't want to bore you but at the top of the agenda in my current thoughts is that it is not really companies who relocate - it's people - young graduates, growing families, and executives and the marvellous thing about that is that we have something for everyone here in our fabulous suburb of West Bridgford just one mile outside Nottingham, where Nook & Cranny chose to place its luxury serviced apartments. 

Just as an aside, I am speaking from a position of experience. I was born and raised in Wimbledon, lived there until I was 19, chose Nottingham University to do my degree in Economics with a focus on Entrepreneurship, and loved the place so much that I stayed. So I've been a graduate here, I've raised my 3 sons who are all teenagers now and one has gone off to University himself.

West Bridgford has been a fabulous place to:

• Play Sports – National Watersports Centre, 3 health clubs, 5 tennis clubs, squash courts, a bowling green and a plethora of activities based around rowing and sailing on the River Trent for adults and kids alike
• Watch Sports – Trent Bridge Cricket Club, Nottingham Forest, Notts County, and the Watersports Centre again. We also have The Nottingham Tennis Open before Wimbledon each year too.
• Set up and run an independent business – we have the highest density of independent retailers, bars and restaurants outside London, which is great for consumers but also great to set up your own thing here and live the life of an entrepreneur, this place is really buzzy...
• Travel by public transport – we have the easiest to use, most comprehensive Bus & Tram Network outside London too... Very green aren't we?
• Educate your children – we have many excellent primary schools and three of the best senior schools in the country, all based in West Bridgford. We also have excellent public schools if you prefer.
• Buy a house – we may not be at the heights of capital growth that London has enjoyed (thank goodness!) but it's still been a great investment to buy property in West Bridgford over the years and that doesn't seem to show any signs of abating. In fact, one my favourite estate agents, Steve Parker, told me last week that they had had their best week in a long time, just one week after Brexit, which speaks volumes to me.
• Feed your family well – with our Farmers Market, a popular vegan restaurant and all the usual national chains and many great independent restaurants and coffee shops. 
• Have fun – whether it's music venues, cocktails or coffee, run routes or restaurants – we have it all!

Personally I left London for a great job, a high standard of living and to avoid the daily grind of the tube into London (and, shucks, I stayed for love). But whatever reason you pick to Lexit, do consider Nottingham and its exciting opportunities, and feel free to get in touch if you think you may need any local info or a serviced apartment to call home while you look for your new, more permanent home. 

Last year, more than half of our guests came from overseas, most of them were relocating to Nottingham to start a new position and stayed with us for anything from a month up to a year. People have come to stay from all over the world, including the EU, Australia, the U.S. and pretty much anywhere else you can think of. The only continents we haven't had guests from yet are the Arctic and Antarctica, so if you're reading this in one of the poles and thinking of relocating to warmer climes drop us a line!

We're really proud of our international connections and our ethos is to make everyone who stays with us feel welcome so we try to cater for everyone's needs and expectations.

Catering for different tastes
Very quickly we realised that GCSE French wasn't going to cut it in the language stakes so we found software that sends out booking confirmations and invoices to clients in their mother tongue to take care of the language barrier. Sometimes global guests arrive with different expectations and social norms, so we've equipped our luxury apartments accordingly to make sure we take cultural differences into account, which has been great fun.

For example, our Italian guests love to have a large pasta pan to use, and North Americans expect good quality coffee, none of this instant stuff. So all of our apartments are kitted out with a range of pans and they all come with a Nespresso machine (and we've not had a single complaint about the coffee!). 

In most places around the world these days, people think that white linen and towels are the most hygienic so last year we changed every single sheet, pillowcase, duvet cover and towel in our apartments to a crisp, brand new white one.

We're definitely an international company but we also like to provide a “flavour of Britishness” for our visitors. Once our guests are here we'll show them around gorgeous West Bridgford and recommend quality local restaurants and shops (of which there are many!) to go to, other local businesses that are in-keeping with our brand of localness, and provide the same quality and high level of service we do. We're also really happy to introduce guests to other local folks we think they'll get on with and help them settle into the area, so before they know it they'll feel like a local.

We're so proud of our international community of guests and love that they want to move to Nottingham and come and stay in our wonderful town so we recently shared our story and entered the East Midlands Chamber Excellence in International Trade Award, we'll let you know how we get on...

In the meantime, don't forget to get in touch to ask us anything about our gorgeous apartments or to check that we've got what you need for a perfect stay (especially if you're moving here from the Arctic or Antarctica!).

My youngest son and I are having a chat over a hot chocolate this morning and he poses the question:

"If trees gave off WiFi would we plant more of them?"

He'd heard this at school, they quickly considered it and initially decided that they would go off to plant trees all over country and the cityscape in order to get faster and simpler WiFi. Then the smart kid stopped the discussion in its tracks by saying:

"Oh, but wait, trees only emit essential life-giving oxygen whilst cleansing away the carbon dioxide which would otherwise kill us. Doh!! So why don't we plant more trees?"

This got me thinking about the new version of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs which I spotted on my Facebook feed the other day:
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This is certainly the way that most of the guests in our serviced apartments feel. WiFi used to be the first thing that people asked questions about: 

• Is it fast?
• Is it free?
• Is it easy to access?
• Is it unlimited?

Now guests assume that the answer to all of those questions is a great big YES (and they are right), and if they couldn't log in to their Netflix accounts on the smart TV they would be very, understandably, disappointed. And so would I.

Next week I'm off to Paris to an international conference for serviced apartment and short let providers, I am staying, naturally, in a serviced apartment in Paris and I have not even asked the question about the WiFi as I am very confident that no serviced apartment worth its salt would do anything other than offer an unspoken availability of WiFi – fast, free, unlimited and simple. 

We are increasingly being asked the question – can I plug into the router by ethernet cable? And will I be the only person using the WiFi network? These are businessmen are women who are keen to keep the cyber security options in their own hands, and the answer again is yes, you have access to cabled in internet and you will be have your own network in each apartment. This is yet another reason why people say that they prefer a short stay serviced apartment to the city centre hotels in Nottingham and elsewhere where they may only have the unsecured WiFi option. We are blessed by superfast WiFi on fibre optic cables here in West Bridgford, enabling us to join in with the 21st century working and playing standards.

So, back to the trees.

We are so lucky here in West Bridgford, that we have plenty of fast, free, unlimited easy access WiFi as well as many trees, parks, green areas and walks down the tree-lined River Trent, which makes our environment beautiful to be in and a modern community to access technology in too. We are delighted to be able to offer modern, stylish, luxury serviced apartments in West Bridgford with great WiFi and many trees thrown in for your enjoyment this autumn and all year round!