Ascott Targets 150 lyf Properties with 30,000+ Units by 2030

(12 Apr 2022, 11:48 +07)  Ascott has set an ambitious target of signing 150 properties with over 30,000 units under its lyf coliving brand by 2030.

The lyf (pronounced 'life') lodging concept comprises apartments, social spaces and experiential programmes designed for guests to forge connections and nurture a strong sense of community.

Ascott currently has 17 lyf coliving properties with over 3,200 units in 14 cities and nine countries.

Mr Kevin Goh, CLI’s Chief Executive Officer for Lodging, said, “An unique lodging product in a class of its own, Ascott developed lyf as a solution that combines the best of serviced residences, hotels and coliving apartments. We have opened seven lyf properties in Singapore, China, Japan and Thailand to date. Our first lyf property – lyf Funan Singapore achieved an 80% occupancy level within three months of its opening in September 2019. lyf one-north Singapore welcomed our first guest in November 2021, and we have already achieved a strong occupancy rate of above 85% today. We see the potential to expand our lyf portfolio to 150 properties by 2030. In addition to growing the lyf brand via management contracts, we also see attractive opportunities for our private funds and Ascott Residence Trust to deploy more investments into this product class.”

Room at lyf one-north Singapore

Owned by Ascott’s sponsored hospitality trust, Ascott Residence Trust (ART), the 324-unit lyf one-north Singapore will be an integral part of one-north, Singapore’s research and innovation hub. The property serves to meet the coliving needs of many innovative start-ups, research and development firms as well as high-tech and media enterprises located nearby, while injecting more vibrancy into the district through its experiential programmes and placemaking activities.

The Ascott Serviced Residence Global Fund currently owns two lyf-branded coliving properties – lyf Funan Singapore as well as lyf Gambetta Paris, Ascott’s first lyf-branded property in Europe that is slated to open in 2023.

 “lyf as a digitally-enabled coliving concept continues to resonate well with our guests and partners across the world with new signings and property openings being on track despite COVID-19. The pandemic has spurred a new way to live and work. We see more digital nomads and self-starters preferring to work remotely, demanding novel experiences and opportunities to connect. The lyf brand, with its coliving spaces and innovative in-house activities, offers something that is hard to quantify – the community of like-minded individuals at one’s doorstep and social interactions with one’s neighbours. From its fully-furnished apartments, the welcoming environment to the genuine connection shared amongst our guests, lyf is thoughtfully designed and curated to meet the needs of these next-generation guests,” Mr Goh added.

Ascott is also empowering lyf as a coliving concept through digital technology. The service model of lyf is anchored upon the Discover ASR mobile app which enables functionalities from room bookings, check-in and check-out, keyless room access, management of social spaces and community events, communication board with guests to cashless payment.

Created in collaboration with Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Informatics & IT, the lyf Innovation Lab explores, designs and testbeds immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies and digital experiences for lyf.

lyf one-north Singapore will serve as a living lab for field testing those digital innovations, with successful pilots eventually being implemented across other lyf properties worldwide.

Ms Tan Bee Leng, Ascott’s Managing Director for Brand & Marketing, said, “Creative coinnovation with industry partners, domain experts and institutes of higher learning will be a key focus for Ascott in our brand development work. We are in talks to set up more innovation labs for our other brands to field test new lodging concepts and hospitality  programming. These living labs will enable us to rapidly prototype anything from eco-gyms to the  latest cutting-edge technology. Guest usage patterns and preferences can then be translated into actionable insights to improve and expand Ascott’s hospitality product and service offerings. It will also shore up Ascott’s competitiveness through the upskilling of staff and the honing of our innovation capabilities.”

This year, five lyf properties are slated to open across the globe in gateway cities such as Bangkok, Cebu, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Xi’an.

Five other lyf properties are scheduled to open in Beijing, Danang, Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Manila and Paris by 2025.