Serviced Apartment News: The Dedicated News Platform for Serviced Apartments and Extended Stay
Serviced Apartment News — known throughout its industry as SAN — is an online news platform covering the global serviced apartment, aparthotel and extended stay sector, published at servicedapartmentnews.com by International Hospitality Media (IHM). Launched in 2013 and based in London, it describes itself as the number one news platform for its sector and as the only dedicated online news and information resource for serviced apartments, aparthotels and extended stay. Its readers are the operators, owners, developers, investors and suppliers building a form of accommodation that sits between the hotel and the rental home.
When SAN launched, serviced apartments were a niche corner of hospitality, often confused with corporate housing or holiday lets. The sector has since become a recognised asset class, with global hotel groups, institutional investors and dedicated operator brands competing in it. Serviced Apartment News chronicled that coming-of-age daily, and — through the Serviced Apartment Summit events that launched alongside it — helped to give the sector a community and a voice.
Overview
SAN is a business-to-business publication for an international audience. Its news is organised by geography and theme — stories are datelined by country and cover openings, acquisitions, brand launches, appointments, technology, distribution, regulation and research — all filtered through a single question: what does this mean for serviced apartments and extended stay? A media pack from the publisher positions the title within the IHM portfolio alongside Boutique Hotel News, ShortTermRentalz and Urban Living News, and reports average monthly website visitors and a subscriber base of more than nine thousand opted-in enewsletter recipients, with an average email open rate given in the same pack.
The audience profile is professional and senior: operators and property owners predominate, reading on desktop during the working week, with the UK the largest single market among an international readership spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and the Americas — the same geography its news covers.
History and Founding
Serviced Apartment News launched in 2013, the same year the Serviced Apartment Summit brand was launched with a London event. The two grew together: the 2014 London conference attracted almost three hundred delegates and speakers from as far afield as Australia, Singapore, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, the United States and India, and by 2015 the London Summit was drawing three hundred delegates from more than twenty countries. The Summit then exported itself, with a Middle East and Africa event in Dubai and a first Americas conference in New York, each announced and reported through SAN.
Editor George Sell has worked for International Hospitality Media since the company's inception, editing SAN from its early days and later becoming IHM's editor-in-chief while continuing to edit the title, alongside sister website Boutique Hotel News. Under chief executive Piers Brown, IHM built around SAN a portfolio of sector publications and events as the extended stay, short-term rental and urban living markets converged.
Ownership and Business Model
SAN is part of International Hospitality Media, a hospitality publishing and events company led by chief executive Piers Brown. IHM's portfolio, as set out in its media materials, comprises Serviced Apartment News (launched 2013), Boutique Hotel News for the boutique, luxury and lifestyle hotel market, ShortTermRentalz (launched in 2018) for the short-term and vacation rental sectors, and Urban Living News (launched in April 2022) covering the convergence of living asset classes including build-to-rent, student housing, senior living, coliving and flexible workspace.
The business model blends media and events: advertising and sponsored content on the website and enewsletter, solus emails, webinars, podcasts, research and social campaigns for commercial partners, and a conference portfolio anchored by the Serviced Apartment Summit and the Urban Living Festival. IHM's commercial team sells access to a hard-to-reach professional audience; its editorial team keeps that audience returning with independent daily news.
Coverage and Content
The news file is global and deal-driven. Typical stories include an operator's brand debut — such as Millennium & Copthorne's first Millennium Executive Apartments opening in Muscat — product innovation by established operators such as SACO's Club Apartments in Manchester, serviced apartment launches within famous hotels such as the Imperial Hotel Tokyo's apartments, and new market entries from Asian developers launching serviced residences in Hong Kong. Appointments, investment rounds, management contract wins and technology partnerships fill out the daily mix, alongside industry news about the sector itself, including IHM's own hires and launches.
Features and comment add interpretation: annual A–Z guides to the forces shaping travel and hospitality, interviews with sector leaders, and conference reporting that distils summit debates — on whether serviced apartments protect owners in downturns, whether hotel-branded residences can move into the mid-market, and how brands should work with private owners — for readers who could not attend.
Audience and Reach
SAN's stated target readership covers the whole value chain of extended stay: serviced apartment, branded residence and corporate housing operators and developers; bankers, lenders and investors; advisory and consultancy specialists; real estate brokers and support services; corporate travel buyers; travel management companies; lawyers; and suppliers and service providers. That breadth, set out in its summit materials, is precisely the audience its news is written to serve.
Reach is international by design. Its summit audiences have spanned more than twenty countries, its news is datelined from Oman to Japan to the United States, and its publisher's media pack breaks its web audience down by visitor location across several continents, with the UK the largest single share. For a sector in which brands expand market by market across borders, a single global news source has clear value.
Editorial Voice
The voice is that of the knowledgeable sector insider: concise news writing, trade terminology used without apology, and context supplied where a development matters beyond its press release. SAN's short news format — many stories are flagged as a minute's read — reflects a busy executive readership, while its features, interviews and event coverage carry the analysis. Editor-in-chief George Sell, whose background spans business-to-consumer and business-to-business journalism across property, travel and hospitality, fronts the title's thought leadership, framing themes such as the convergence of hospitality and real estate asset classes that IHM's newer brands were created to cover.
The publication is an advocate for its sector without being its mouthpiece: it reports the industry's growth story energetically, but its conference sessions and features also interrogate downturns, oversupply and shifting guest expectations.
Digital Presence
SAN is a digital-only title built around its website, a weekly enewsletter, social channels including X and LinkedIn under the Serviced Apartment News name, podcasts and webinars. Commercial formats set out in its media pack — sponsored content, research, fully hosted webinars, banners, solus emails and social engagement — show a publication designed as a multimedia platform rather than a simple news feed. Its stories invite tips and participation, and IHM recruits reporters to attend industry events and expand output — one appointment, for example, brought in a reporter with bylines in The Independent, The Times and Times Higher to support growing editorial output.
The digital presence extends into live convening: registrations for IHM's Urban Living webinar series passed twenty thousand in the two years after its May 2020 launch, illustrating the scale of online audience the portfolio's events now command.
Notable People
George Sell, editor of Serviced Apartment News and editor-in-chief of IHM, is the title's editorial figurehead — with the company since its inception, specialising in property, travel and hospitality, and editing sister title Boutique Hotel News alongside SAN. Piers Brown, IHM's chief executive, is its commercial and strategic leader, chairing summit content streams, launching the event brands internationally and announcing portfolio expansions such as Urban Living News. Around them, a UK-based editorial and events team — including reporters and editors across the sister titles, such as short-term rentals editor Paul Stevens, whose promotion recognised his role in launching ShortTermRentalz — produces the portfolio's output.
Events and the Serviced Apartment Summit
The Serviced Apartment Summit is SAN's sibling franchise and a pillar of its influence: launched in London in 2013, expanded to Dubai for the Middle East and Africa and to New York for the Americas, and sponsored in its growth years by leading operators such as Cheval Residences and BridgeStreet Global Hospitality. Partnerships extended the brand further, with HOFTEL collaborations placing serviced apartment content streams inside wider hotel investment summits in Abu Dhabi. Through the Summit, the news brand became a meeting place — operators, developers, investors and advisers who read SAN could meet under its banner — and the events in turn generated the interviews, debates and market intelligence that filled its pages.
Recent Developments
The portfolio around SAN continues to evolve with its market. IHM launched Urban Living News in 2022 to give year-round coverage to the converging living sectors its webinars and festival had opened up, appointed and promoted editorial staff across its titles, and pursued partnerships with real estate and hospitality groups whose portfolios span the same converging asset classes. For SAN itself, the mission stated in its media materials is unchanged: breaking news, comment, trends and opinion for the global serviced apartment, aparthotel and extended stay sectors — the dedicated record of an industry that, in the decade-plus since SAN launched, has moved from hospitality's margins to its mainstream.
