How to choose the right corporate housing partner for your organization

Posted on Thursday, February 20 2025

How to choose the right corporate housing partner for your organization

No matter your reason for needing corporate housing – whether you’re a global mobility specialist, relocation manager, HR practioner, insurance professional, or one of the many other roles who need access to reliable accommodation for your stakeholders – the first step is ensuring you have a partner you can count on. You need a corporate housing provider who is available, responsive, flexible, and who can deliver the best experience to your employees, clients and contractors.

But how do you find the right corporate housing partner for your organization?

Here are our 7 tips to ensure you end up working with the right corporate housing provider:

1. Ensure you know what you need. Maybe you need multiple suites in the same city to house project management teams in your head office; maybe you need national coverage to support multiple locations across Canada; or you may need access to a 24-hour hotline to address the needs of insurance clients who need prompt support. Creating a list of the ‘need to haves’ and ‘nice to haves’ will go a long way to ensuring that you get the corporate housing partner that really works for you in the long run.
2. Prioritize locations. Some corporate housing companies specialize in very narrow geographic locations. This is great for organizations who don’t need wide geographic coverage, but can pose challenges if needs arise in other places. It’s worthwhile to make a list of the locations in which your organization has used corporate housing in the past 3+ years.
3. Check reviews and references. If you were selecting a vacation or rental home for yourself, one of the first things you’d do is check the online reviews to see what other people had to say about the location. The same is true for corporate housing providers. See what other companies and guests have to say about their suites, service, pricing, etc. And don’t be afraid to ask for references from other organizations who have worked with them.
4. Check their accreditations and certifications. A key benefit of partnering with an established corporate housing company rather than using private Airbnbs or other short-term rental companies is knowing that they are a ‘legitimate’ company with a brand name and reputation to protect. One of the ways the best corporate housing companies do this is by ensuring they’ve been inspected and accredited by industry organizations such as CHPA (Corporate Housing Providers Association), ISAAP (International Serviced Accommodation Accreditation Process) and CERC (Canadian Employee Relocation Council). Accreditations are a good indication that the organization is properly run and meets high standards for reliability, safety and quality.
5. Ask for tours of more than one property. While you probably can’t visit all of a corporate housing provider’s properties, it’s worthwhile to see as many as is practical, preferably in more than one location. This avoids the risk of being shown a single ‘show home’ that’s kept in perfect condition but isn’t reflective of what your stakeholders can expect at other locations. Where it’s not possible to visit properties, request video tours that allow you to see details such as inside closets, kitchen appliances and other details that might not be readily available from photographs.
6. Consider a ‘test stay’. Just as travel agents often spend a few days at a new resort so they can make accurate recommendations to their clients, you can request a brief stay at the property of a potential corporate housing provider. This is especially useful if part of your role involves placing senior executives or clients and need to ensure that the company can deliver an experience that meets expectations.
7. Don’t overlook the administrative process. In our experience, the booking, management and billing process is often overlooked when organizations are looking for a new corporate housing partner – but can, in the long run, be something that can cause the most headaches. It’s helpful to develop a detailed SLA (service level agreement) that sets out expectations for responsiveness (how quickly you expect the company to respond to requests), placement (how quickly a guest can be placed into a suite once the request is made), account management for things like housekeeping or repairs, and details about billing and payments.

Want more information?

The right corporate housing provider can be an effective partner for your organization. Talk to us about how Premiere Suites can help you get more out of your corporate housing efforts!

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