"When you book through Oakwood, 88% of the time around the world, you're in one of our apartments, and we take care of everything from booking to departure. It's the other needs that we fill in with our partners," explains James. "In those cases, we'll arrange the arrival, get the information, we confirm all the details--we basically handle the guest until they arrive at the door of the property. They hand their credit card over at the front desk and pay for the accommodation there. And then, we serve as a liaison--if there are any issues that arise or they have any questions, and if we can help with their next booking--that's where we stay close with the desk."

For the Alliance partners, teaming with Oakwood greatly increases their visibility and access to customers, and boosts their marketing capacity and administrative infrastructure. Oakwood already has cornered the market on temporary housing; the company services 75% of the relocation market with 85% of third-party relocation providers.

With more than 300 network partners, Oakwood now has some 23,000 apartments in more than 4,000 locations in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Many of those partners are in Europe, but Asia in particular is an area that's rapidly growing, says James. Our number-one booking area is Europe, but Asia Pacific is catching up fast," he says. "Temporary housing is just exploding in China and India, and it's growing beyond the typical markets." As such, the company is continuously looking for new partners, having recently signed a deal with a developer in Hong Kong. The EMEA region is another area of strong demand, and South America is a burgeoning market as well, he adds.

With the properties under construction, Oakwood is doubling its asset count. That, James states, "is going to take care of a lot of the demand in the key markets. And the alliance partners really help round us out. For instance, we don't have buildings in Johannesburg, South Africa, but we have a partner with two first-class properties there."

Yet while the firm is expanding, it's doing so on a careful and measured basis. "We're doing it at a pace where we're careful because our service standards and guest experience requirements are high," says James. "As much as we want to be everywhere our customers might want, we're very sensitive about going too fast."

It's that mentality that's also keeping Oakwood from making any acquisitions for now, despite being in a rapidly consolidating industry. The firm's expansion strategy has always been through organic growth. "We'll flag a building or go out and acquire one and expand our corporate apartment offices as we see fit in the locations with the highest demand," says James. "The acquisition of a competitor or another firm is not something we're permanently opposed to, but it's just not in our strategy at the moment."