And that difference is the extra effort we put in.

I live in West Bridgford and I personally  make sure that every property is perfect and ready before our guests arrive. Last year, I talked about my aim of providing a service that's the complete opposite of the dehumaising experience many people experience when they relocate or travel for business. We want our visitors to feel part of the community they're staying in the moment they arrive, so we make sure they do by finding out exactly what they need during their stay (whether that's a gym, a cot, information about local schools or any other help with relocating). ​

We've had a fantastic year and we hope you have too. We intend to keep growing on our success and carry on providing the best short-term accommodation around! If you'd like to check out our luxury apartments and experience our customer service for yourself please get in touch. And don't forget to come back soon and read about our Christmas Party!

With Queens Medical Centre, the British Geological Survey, Boots HQ, Experian, Capital One, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham and a host of other big employers just down the road, we often welcome guests from all over the world who are either relocating to the area or spending a few months here for work.

Recently we welcomed Matt and Sally who travelled about 10,500 miles to our lovely corner of Nottinghamshire all the way from Melbourne. Sally and Matt are both doctors and Matt was here to undertake a 5-month Fellowship to train at the world renowned QMC, and obviously not wanting to miss out on everything that West Bridgford has to offer, his wife and small baby came along for the ride.

The couple found out about us online and knew that they wanted to stay in a serviced apartment rather than a hotel so that they could live like the locals and experience England to the full – and that they did.

They loved the apartment we put them in with its little garden, and Sally and the baby quickly met other mums and tots in the area and became part of the community very quickly, which made the move much easier. Despite what is said about the British (often by the Australians!) we're actually a pretty friendly bunch, definitely in West Bridgford where despite being on the edge of a major city, we have a friendly, welcoming community.

When two other doctors from Melbourne turned up to work in England with their teenage daughter who had won a scholarship to Nottingham Tennis Academy from Australia, I mentioned the families to each other and of course they all knew each other from back home! So when the other family arrived they had a readymade network to join through Matt and Sally.

More than just somewhere to stay

Unlike a soulless hotel, we pride ourselves on providing more than just somewhere for people to stay. Having done a lot of business travel myself over the years I know that it can be lonely and isolating so I've shaped what I offer by thinking back to those trips and what would have made a difference to me when I was away from home.

"Katie was a fantastic hostess"

Our apartments are really well equipped so that our guests can settle in, be comfortable straightaway and make it feel like home for a few weeks or months.

But more than that we like to help people settle into the area so we provide Relocation Services (which are free) to help guests find everything they'll need while they're here, including schools, places to go out, a guide to the local sights, and if we think they'll get on (and are happy for us to) we introduce them to other guests so they've got a social life and support as soon as they arrive.

When they got back to Oz Matt and Sally wrote to say how much they'd enjoyed their time in West Bridgford and how it was the small things, like introducing them to other people, that had made all the difference to their stay (and they said that wherever they go with their careers they'll also stay in short-term lets rather than hotels after their experience over here).

What are the little touches you love when you're away from home?

If you've got any questions about our properties or you'd like to make an enquiry please get in touch.

In my role as a serviced apartment provider and host I meet a large number of business travellers who stay in our serviced apartments for any length of time between 1 week and 57 weeks (and counting...) on corporate travel, the average stay being about 12 weeks.

I enjoy welcoming them and talking with them as they are a very international group of individuals with a wealth of cultural diversity. I am often honoured by them telling me their personal stories. I find myself doing a pseudo PhD in the Psychology of the Business Traveller, so I thought I'd share with you some of my musings to see if you can add your insights, which I'd be grateful to hear.

Why don't you email me, or comment below? The main theme is the diminished sense of self, across the board, at any level in the corporation or small business. I have made it my mission to understand this, and to see if we can start a movement to give them better options which might make business travel a more pleasurable and even enjoyable experience.

The words that these businessmen and women are using when they describe their travel from home and family to a lengthy work stay across the country or world are these:

• Invisible
• A number
• Diminished
• Dehumanised
• Disconnected
• Alone
• Helpless

They talk of always being a stranger, in an unfamiliar place, even when they are regular guests in that city, town or hotel. They discuss being herded from the minute they leave their home and family - it starts in the queue for the long-stay car park at the airport, through the check-in, passport control, departures, duty free, flight, passport control, arrivals, car hire, motorway service station – and then finally reception at a hotel or apartment often in a high-rise with a big cityscape in someone else's home city, where they support someone else's team, eat someone else's local food, frequent someone else's local cultural places. These business travellers rarely meet or talk to those locals, except across a board room table or a conference hall.

So when I welcome my guests I am aiming to make them feel:

• Recognised
• Human
• Calm
• Informed about local community places spaces and events, especially for the long stayers

Alongside that I try to listen to them about how much help and assistance they might want. I ask them about when they may want that help - often they are tired when they first arrive. I try to put myself in their shoes because I worked for IBM for 10 years and certainly did my fair share of flying around, checking-in, checking-out and at best having a chat with the concierge about his kids whilst someone else put mine to bed at the other end of Europe. I suppose in essence, I am trying to be a mind reader.

Don't get me wrong, this is such an alien approach to the veteran business traveller that sometimes I get the distinct feeling that they are happy being a number, invisible, off the grid - and in that case I will leave them alone with their super-fast WiFi, to enjoy FaceTime with their friends back home and catching up on their Netflix wishlist, with details of how to access local knowledge and assistance should they change their mind.

It is my intention to make people feel 

• Comfortable
• Relaxed 
• Familiar
• Plugged in
• Rooted
• Grounded

​Let's face it - that isn't very hard, as long as you have the express intention to do so. 

Too many of the places where our global and national business travellers are staying/living do not give them a chance to explore a place which, had they been there with their families, they would have called a holiday destination.

These people are effectively living in a city for long periods of time despite the fact that they may either pop back home for a couple of days every few weeks or have their families join them periodically. I feel that it is our duty as business travel hosts to help them to feel free, unburdened and open to the cultural experience.

In essence we, as hosts, should be able to equip them to explore in their downtime, to be brave, adventurous and spontaneous in a way which would make the whole experience richer for them. This has a positive and refreshing knock-on effect on the business that they are working with or for, and to the wider perception of business travel.

Let's aim for exciting, connected and enriching business travel, dehumanising is just not good enough, it's lazy of the industry. Nook & Cranny plan to be the vanguard of positive change. We would welcome you along for the ride.