Scaling Short-Stay Living with Laurenz Schwarzhappel (Global Living Apartments)

Jessica
Laurenz, thank you so much for joining me for a conversation on Pillow Talk Sessions. I'm looking forward to speaking with you and going into some depth about a few topics. But firstly, and actually I want to give an overview of Global Living Apartments. are based or you originally were based in Berlin and now you operate across about nine cities in Germany.

and I believe you have about 150 units that are under operation and management as well. But my first question for you is, is that your background's a little bit different. So you don't come from hospitality, I believe you come from legal tech and your co-founders come from different industries. First question is, what is it about hospitality that attracted you guys? Second part of that is,

What do you bring that is different to hospitality and your thinking as you're running your operations?

Laurenz
Yeah, Jessica, thank you for having me in the podcast. I would say, yeah, we are coming also with three founder, which, yeah, Found Global Living 2022. And we're coming from...

different backgrounds. ⁓ from Austria ⁓ originally, so I moved to Berlin like 2021 and we met together all in the same legal tech firm as you mentioned. And we're coming from a bit this startup environment also.

both of my co-founders were before in startups or even founded companies before. means basically we do have a bit of background in founding a company. We don't have any, or we hadn't any background in the hospitality industry. And which leads us to think about together ⁓ in which industry is the most need of.

digitalization and where can we bring our thinking of starting a new company in a before case legal tech environment and even the tech part. Where can we do this pretty good? And we saw in that case that the hospitality industry is a pretty pretty

basic with not that much technology in it because when for example we get together in Stuttgart, sit in Germany and I came to the front desk and the front desk gave me a sheet where I have to fill out it by myself with and they took it then they type it in in their computer and that's

really not the state of the art we would like to operate. And there we saw, okay, there is a need in this segment, how we operate on the one hand our own houses, but also help other providers, help other hosts to even do the digital trend, which is now occurring, of course. Yeah, that's where we come from. That's where we are now. That's what we're doing.

Jessica
So I guess from your own experience as a guest, but also just by looking at the industry, you you really saw that opportunity to do something different and disrupt and change. What, just out of curiosity, what other industries were you also looking at as you were deciding to do a startup together?

Laurenz
Yeah, we had a few possibilities, but not that much because we said, okay, we would like to focus on two, three other opportunities. One was also in the commercial business, so doing shipping stuff. But this wasn't as good as the hotel industry, because also direct after COVID and with all the immense...

topics which we had in other industries, we thought it's the best time to go into the hospitality segment even with other competitors which went out of the market because of COVID and yeah, that there was I think a really perfect time to do so.

Jessica
So it was 2021 that you launched, which was still quite heady to COVID days, wasn't it? It wasn't like the first year of the pandemic when we were all under lockdown, but that second year was a real shift in terms of particularly in short stay accommodation, because there was a real sort of urgent growth in the demand.

for short stays, particularly over hotels and especially in domestic markets and things like that, because some countries we still couldn't quite travel outside of our own country. So it was a real sort of golden time that 2021 in the industry. But you guys operate service departments, is that correct? So sort of more in the kind of the service departments. So what was it about that particular asset class that was attractive to you?

Laurenz
Yeah, I think.

The group we are focusing on and the people which stays with us are mostly like families or even groups. So we are not providing or we are providing a very less amount of our rooms are even just for two people. So it's under 10 % of our rooms are just for two people. So what we are doing is we saw and that's what we are doing today too is we saw the need in the guest segment families

because we see that over many more generations, like grandchildren, the parents and even the grandparents, they are traveling together. And that's what's not a typical hotel is like to come together in one room or even in one apartment to...

have my own breakfast for example, then go out and show and explore the city and then come back for the evening or lunch and say okay we are coming together as family and that's what we in most of our apartments are providing and this group of guests we try to address and we do address is a very for us good opportunity in a niche of segment.

Jessica
So it's quite refreshing because often with service departments, it will be obviously the business travelers, but then also a lot of talk of digital nomads and that expanding that leisure pleasure. I suppose also that's, know, digital nomads bring their families with them, you know. And I did mention to you in the prequel that we did that I am looking to book a place.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
for my family in Berlin and

we are just about to book one of your apartments. So I'm very much looking forward to trying one out. I think though, if we go back to the opportunity that you saw in the sector, so there's that digitalization piece, but then there's also the type of guests and offering something to them. But if we go back to the digitalization piece,

Laurenz
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
Is it like, where do you see the biggest opportunity in terms of that? Is it from the guest experience side? Or is it the operational side or both? and so that I guess would be the first question. Then I've got a follow up I'd love to ask after that.

Laurenz
think both sides are very attractive because as you see and if you go like in a Berlin market and if you search for two people for a room then you get 1200 rooms. But if you go then bigger in head counts then you have just a few of that like 20-30 % maybe. And the supply does not fit the demand of guests because

We have an occupancy rate around the year, approximately at 92%, which sees the exact opposite of many hotels. They achieving like 60, 65%, maybe in Berlin a little higher, but we're having across all of our nine cities in Germany, over 90 % occupancy rate. And that's what we see in supply and demand.

then we are doing it very much more in a digital way so that we address also young people, but also the older generation, which is a little bit curious and say, okay, I would like to try that out because it's new maybe for them. And yeah, these both sides are very, very much interesting for us. So I say.

Jessica
with a 91 % occupancy rate tells me I better book quick for the apartment that I want.

Laurenz
Absolutely, yes. Absolutely.

Jessica
But can we talk about the German market? Because I've been in the short stay in the hotel space for a number of years and the last couple of years there's a lot of excitement around not just Germany but the whole of the Dach region as being a very quite fast growing short stay market. So, give...

Give us all, if you don't mind, an overview of the German market and what's kind of going on there that's making it so interesting to see what's kind of happening.

Laurenz
Yeah, sure. I think there are two major topics we can address in Germany. So on the one hand, you have the major market like Berlin, like Munich, like Hamburg, but you do have, and that's what...

we are seeing today with our openings of our new houses that also markets like with smaller cities like ⁓ Jena, Jena is a small city in Germany or Chemnitz we are opening a house next month in Chemnitz. We see that there is a lot of demand and we didn't expect for example, we opened a new house in Jena in August 2025, so last year, last six months and

We had, of course, a financial plan how it should look like, but it was tremendously more on demand, which we didn't expect at all from a small city, because you do have a lot of industry in such small cities too. Like in Jena, you have Jena Optics, which is a big company, which is also listed in the public market.

There you have the business traveler as you already mentioned, but you do have also, and that's the second part which we offer is you have the business traveler, they are traveling with their kids, with the family because they cancel. And that.

I think this makes the German market really interesting for us to see that there's not just Berlin or Munich which has a really high occupancy rate because also in Jena we have over 90 % occupancy rate the last six months. Yeah, that makes it really interesting.

Jessica
So the demand is there and you're helping with the supply side, bringing it in. I want to talk about where you're getting the supply in a minute, but before I get to that, is there any, like what's happening regulation wise in Germany? Is there, you know, the traditional Airbnb of the single family homes? Is that like, how does that kind of market compared to what you're doing with the more, you know, multi-unit properties?

Laurenz
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah,

absolutely. So you have a very strict rules in such big cities like Berlin, Munich and so on. So you are not able to use classic flat, which you can use privately also for Airbnb. And I think that's really good because then you take out of the...

really strict market, which is in Berlin, not even that good, and Munich also not, you have to private market. But you have to separate that completely because what we are doing is we are converting commercial real estate basically out of ⁓ office spaces, out of other commercial real estate, which you're not able...

to use as private living areas because we are restricted in that we are not allowed to rent them out more than six months. So basically we are

even not allowed to do so. And the rules are very, very strict. So you have to all fire rules and you know what you have to do before you get the permission to open your house. It's a very long process. You have to deal with very much loss, but it's good to do so. And also that you don't can just convert a private flat and a house to any Airbnb to...

gain and own money. So that's not the deal in that case.

Jessica
So the commercial assets that you're using, I guess it's like offices, would it be old retail as well that you're using? Like are you being quite creative around what kind of buildings that you might then be converting into rentals?

Laurenz
Yeah, so we did quite a lot in the last two or three years because we also did it with retail market because it wasn't able, this was a flight in Berlin.

we rent about 400 square meter, And we converted them into six rental apartments in the basement. So basically it wasn't able to rent out one flat we converted from office space, which were not able to rent out. even other, it doesn't matter for us what type of...

what type of property it is currently because everything goes out and everything goes new in like in Chemnitz, the other small city we're opening the next one, two month. We had a dance floor, for example, in the first floor, everything out, everything new in, but it was ⁓ back in for last one and half years and the owner wasn't able.

to rent it out in the public market and then we came to say okay hey this is our concept, this is what we can offer and then also landlords and investors are willing to invest in the property because now we're renting this for the next 10 or 15 years and then they are fine with the investment before and we can bring life in this building.

Jessica
So you've turned a dance floor into a rental, into a hospital. That's great. That's great. But just to let me just make sure I'm really clear on that is that these commercial buildings, when they're turned into rentals, they cannot be rented as long-term. Is that what you mean? Because they don't fit whatever the regulations is for that, but they can be for short stays.

Laurenz
Yeah, correct. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Normally, yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. So because you're not able to...

to do it privately so you can do it commercially, but then you have in normally a strict rule in the property that you don't have to, you're not allowed to lend it more than six months, for example, because there are other rules like you have to do a different light concept because then more space of light than in a two day stay has to be there. And there are other rules you have to deal with in the private space, then you have to do it.

I'm doing a normal hotel concept in that case.

Jessica
So there's not maybe necessarily windows in all of the units.

Laurenz
They are, but ⁓ they have different, for example, sizes in the private spot. have to have like ⁓ specific light concept where the windows are specifically big, but you don't have to do that. For example, in the commercial real estate where you just stay for one, two or three days. So there are different ⁓ things, but we don't have rooms without even windows. That's not our case, but they don't have to be,

Jessica
Yeah.

Laurenz
just another or a different rule which we have to follow.

Jessica
Yeah, yeah.

And it's helping the asset owners make use of their properties in a different way. But just back to the no windows, we have actually had on an episode two guests that have separately talked about Moment, which is in Berlin as well, where they are actually trialing windowless rooms to great effect.

Laurenz
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can see, and that's what we are also facing day by day, that people would like to travel a lot. So that's what they would like to. But sometimes they're not able to afford it. And what we are also doing, and this is a similar concept to that, is that we're trying to reduce the ADR per...

guests even to the lowest we can so that they say okay we're staying maybe in a property which is or in a room which is i don't know 20 25 square meter but we are dealing with it that we're staying with four people so not a normal hotel would deal with that but we are doing it and

That's what the guest asks for because then they can even divide 100, 150 euros per day or per night into four people. And then it makes it more affordable for them to travel more than particularly.

Jessica
It is interesting, isn't it? Because as long as you have got a guest in mind, a customer segment in mind, whatever your ideal customer segment is, then you make sure what you're offering goes to that. Not everyone wants or can be the luxury end and that side. There's a huge basis. And it's actually, again, really refreshing to speak to an operator that's not looking for the luxury kind of market as well.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, 100%.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jessica
So I want to talk to you about another topic. we have had, in our last episode, had Uli Pillau, who is one of the co-founders and the CEO of Appalachia. And he talked to us about how in parts of Europe, and one of the examples was Germany, where regulations for lorry drivers, truck drivers for the rest of the world, lorry drivers for aspirates, truck drivers for everybody else, how they can no longer just sleep in their...

Laurenz
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
cabins of their trucks

anymore. So they have to actually stay an overnight somewhere. So there's all these lodging options springing up on the highways, motorways of Germany in order to kind of facilitate this. So that's an example of new kinds of lodging that fits really well with a sort of autonomous hospitality model where it's very much digitalized. You know, don't want loads of staff there. You just, you know, need to just in out.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
the basics kind of thing. But then there are other types of lodging might be cabin, know, quite high end cabins in the woods that really fit. But we're seeing, and we've been probably, I guess, since COVID seeing so much more variety of what hospitality and lodging is. We're seeing the convergence with the living sectors, we're seeing hotels kind of expanding in different ways.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
How do you sort of see that, like those opportunities where there's, you know, and again, one of them is what you've talked about, sort of the extended family stays, the sort of the making sure that rooms fit many people or lots of different people. You're also looking at commercial real estate in a creative way. Anything else that you think that you're interested in or that you can see happening in the market?

Laurenz
Yeah, think that's really interesting what you were speaking about, because if you look 10 years back in the hospitality industry, there were no of these like concept where you, don't know, the truck driver where you can just sleep in a container, for example, but which is very, very luxury often in that case for a container. think today, and that's what ⁓

we are also thinking about is you don't have, and we see that for the specific property owners too, that normally they, in bigger buildings, they would like to rent out the whole building. But what we are doing is we don't need in most cases the whole building. So we say, okay, we take floor number two and floor number four because they didn't rent out in.

the office market, for example, pretty well, but it doesn't matter for us. So I think hospitality concepts fit in each property because you always have a certain amount of guests who are looking for this specific type of property, as you mentioned, I don't know, in certain areas or even...

even in ⁓ backyards where you can sleep in the trees or something like that. And I think for all of these concepts, there will be supply and demand. And I think this is new for the hospitality industry because the way how we sleep in such properties are in so many different ways. Not just I go into hotel if I go on travel or not. I think that that's the really major part that

There are so many concepts, all of them are working.

Jessica
One of the topics that we talk about on this podcast and that I'm very interested in is the concept of tech enabled hospitality. You know, I recently wrote a book about tech enabled hospitality, or I spoke to lots of operators around the globe around what that kind of means and, and how does it sort of play out in operations, but how does it, how will it, and guest experience as well. But in terms of so, so with you, with you, and I believe you've got a hundred

Laurenz
Yep.

Jessica
60

units and I think you've told me you've got three co-founders and you've got two staff running so there's five who are kind of running it so it's a lean operations that you have and it's not only that but you're in cities that are you know miles and miles apart from each other. ⁓

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica
you look at your how and especially is coming in not from a hospitality background but coming in from you know a totally different market how have you looked at your tech stack and developed your your tech stack to make it as efficient as possible for you to operate but then also for your guests to experience?

Laurenz
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, think what makes it really interesting for us is how is automation be defined because most of the people who are long in the hotel industry, for example,

just define automation in, I can send an email or even an invoice to the guest via email. And that's what most of the part of the hotel industry are looking at automation or even using automation. And as you mentioned, we are coming from a complete different side out of the tech industry and we are looking on each...

thing we have to do before we think about, ⁓ do we need someone for a specific task is can we do this with an automation or can we do this without having another.

operations employee or something like that. So, and that works pretty well because then we implement before the tech first is I would say the name for that. And what we are doing and we are building everything around, you mentioned Apple Leo, we are using Apple Leo out of the scenario that we need an open API to.

built around the heart, which is a boleo, all of our tech stack. And this is on the one hand, of course, the complete AI segment. I've just recently got the numbers. We had in the last year over 20,000 messages from and to guests, which are...

never talk to us. That's just the AI, which was approximately over 800 to 900 hours, which we saved for employees not to handle. And what we are facing is that this is not even lower the guest satisfaction. It's the opposite around it. Highest the guest satisfaction because they get messages from us before they even ask for the question.

or when they get asked, they even get it on demand. And then, and that's the major part where really a satisfaction appears is when they do have a problem, we can solve this within minutes or even a few hours. So because we're just getting five to 10 % of

all guest messages really to a personal staff employee. And that makes it really, really good because then they can deal with the guests emotionally if there is any problem or even physically if we do have, I don't know, there's not the best cleaning maybe that can appear. So, but then we can deal with the guests. can help them very quickly and not have to deal with where can we park or are the towels in the room or some

like

that cannot check in early so the questions which get asked day by day every day we don't have to answer them so having said that we most of our guests we do not have any contact to them in a positive way because they are

They just need us in the type of emergency or even a complaint they do have, which is hopefully not as much as the messages. and building this around.

over Apolio in our case. It's really amazing because also our cleaning teams operate completely digital. We have a software where they can take a photo of something which is broken. We get a notification. We can handle this with our maintenance guy on site when the cleaning team is ready. And even it is 10 o'clock in the morning or 1 p.m. the guest gets directly a WhatsApp message. Hey, your room is already

They don't have to ask for hey is my room already done? Can I enter? No we are ⁓ proactively send them messages to say hey now your room is ready and

that what makes for us real guest satisfaction because they love it that they get an answer directly or even room is ready at 12 p.m. Let's go, we can get in. and yeah, that's our tag stack and of course we're all of the stuff automatically and just dealing with the guests when they have an issue or even need help by anything else which they cannot handle.

So this both together is an amazing amount. can lower our costs tremendously and give this ADR advantage to our guests. So that's why, of course, is our ADR and occupancy rate in that region.

Jessica
In hospitality, have a sort of there's an argument going on or there's a conversation that's been going on for a while and it's like, okay AI is great for certain things, but the human touch will still be really important and that hospitality and the human touch. I think that is a slightly simplified argument and you said something that is really interesting and

Laurenz
Mm.

Yeah.

Jessica
If you think about hospitality and you think about what good service is, it's about meeting expectations, exceeding expectations and anticipating needs. And everything that you said there were those two things, know, anticipating the needs and also meeting and exceeding expectations without a single human in the loop there. And that I think is what, we're going with hospitality is that yes, of course we can still keep

Laurenz
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Jessica
saying yes we'll have humans in for certain parts of it yes yes yes but actually do we need you know do we really need it because we can still we can provide maybe well and and you're saying a better guest experience by using automation and technology to get that meeting needs, anticipating needs, meeting expectations bit.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the perfect example is when we are traveling all of us by our own and we are not going into a service department, we see, for example, I'm privately in any time I'm able to. I'm in Las Vegas because I love the city there. But you have to stay in line for an hour to get just your key because there are so many rooms.

Jessica
Yeah. Yeah. I was

in Las Vegas in October and honestly, it wasn't just one front desk I had to go to. I had to go to one front desk, then another one. Like nuts. I can't believe you like Las Vegas though.

Laurenz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

yeah, yeah, but that's not necessary. If a guest needs help, they try to get help on the phone by personal assistant. Perfect. But I don't have to wait in line for an hour or two to even get my key code for something which I can.

Jessica
Yeah.

Laurenz
easily do by myself because it doesn't matter for me to, I don't know, fill out for two minutes. They don't have time even for me. And that's what we are changing in that case. We have time for our guests because we put out everything which is not necessary to get answered by human interaction. So and that's why we can take time for our guests. And that's this. is where guest satisfaction appears.

Jessica
It is, Las Vegas does always shock me because on one level it's so futuristic, but then it's so backwards, you know, when it does come to the experience as well. There's a real sort of, you know, it's a paradox there, a duality in Las Vegas for sure.

Laurenz
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

Jessica
Lorenz, just as we wrap up, what I would love to hear from you is what excites you if you're thinking about the next five years in this industry? What is it that is really exciting you about what might happen in the next five years or so?

Laurenz
Mm. Mm.

Yeah, that's a pretty good question because we're thinking about this a lot regarding also how guests will book the apartment. I think the type of how we travel will change a little bit also over the years. But I think that the way we book the apartments and hotels, this may change a lot because people are today...

talking with ChatGPT and all other AIs about their travel and vacation. And the question will be, where will we book in the next years and how will we decide as individuals where I book or do I give this everything to an AI and say, I would like to go to, for example, Las Vegas the next two weeks. This is my budget.

I would like to have, don't know, a front desk or not. I would like to have a gym or not. And then AI is doing the rest for me. So, and this could appear. And then the question would be, how can we as provider go to that guest and say, Hey, we are the perfect fit for you. it then just by using AI and they are just filtering out? I think this will be the most important.

question and ⁓ I recently talked to booking.com for example and they do have an integration currently with the first one I think with with ⁓ chat jbt for example when you're using the app.

Jessica
Yeah, think Cricket Advice does as

well. One other one I did notice yesterday, but Booking.com definitely does.

Laurenz
Okay,

yeah, and you just type into your phone, I would like to go there and then they book directly the apartment for you. I think there's the way we go. I think also that not even people will be able to wait for answers of a reception that long when they ask something that would like to like on Amazon, they would like to get immediately answers. And this is

Also what not even is a tremendous shift, but I think it will be very much important because this is what most of the hotels has to do that they get way much more in the automation sector.

Jessica
So this shift of how consumers research and buy products, whether it's a hotel stay, a service department stay, or it's a pair of trainers, is like so seismic how this is gonna change. And my view is that the hospitality industry is bit, is in part still a bit of sleep to this, what is both a huge risk.

Laurenz
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica
but also a challenge. And how are you making sure that at Global Living Apartments, you're ready for this shift? Because it's most definitely coming and either you're asleep at the wheel or you're really kind of leaning into it.

Laurenz
Yeah.

Yeah, I think, ⁓ and this will be the major part which we have to deal with is how AI will decide on which apartment fits best for the guest. So, and currently I can't answer the question because we don't know it how they really decide to that because of, I don't know how I searched on Google or what I booked.

recently the last years and days. I think the most important part will be everything which I can do for the guest. Like, I have such advantages for the guest? Like, do I have a gym on site, for example? Do I have certain areas where the guest can...

deal with. So what can I offer to the guest that, for example, the AI says, okay, you are the best fit for his needs. I think giving the guest all we need and focus on specific guest groups, which you will address and be the best in this niche will, of course, I think will be the competitive advantage.

you can bring. So basically, if you address all, you don't address no one. So that's in the marketing segment often said. And I think that's really also ⁓ when booking over AI, you have to address a specific niche and then give all what you have for them.

Jessica
As the Americans say, there's riches in niches, isn't there? So, Laurence, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've really enjoyed this conversation and hearing your thoughts on things and getting sort of deeper in some of the topics with you.

Laurenz
Yeah.

Jessica
What for just to sort of bring us out of the podcast, and we will put all your contact details in the show notes so that everyone can kind of check you out, check your company out as well. But what is it that you're most excited about for you and your company over the next year?

Laurenz
think what we would like to do is on the one hand own our own properties in that case, but on the other hand, and that's what we saw over the last month and years that so much smaller or midsize hotel owners or short-term rentals ⁓ owners are struggling with all of that stuff. How I can handle the guests, how I can...

fix all those problems by my own. And what we are trying to do, and we did recently a big project, which we are now launching two months in Passo with a big investment fund. What we are trying to do is we would like to help all of them by driving their property. So we'd like to take over more property management in that case. And on the other hand, we are

driving our own properties. But that's what we are focusing on for 2026 is that we try to get property owners which are struggling maybe or even don't want to hustle every day that we can help them. this over property management, you had recently guest ready, for example, as a guest. And I think they're doing this pretty well in that segment.

we would like to offer our service in a very similar segment too, because the need is really, really high, I think. And most of the generation said they are driving cool properties, but maybe they need help in that case. And that's what we would like to provide. that's basically what I think which will be having very much impact on the industry, but also on our company.

Jessica
Brilliant, Laurence. Thank you so much and thank you for being on.

Laurenz
Thank you, for your time.