Birmingham is the most popular place in the UK for businesses travellers to stay, according to serviced apartment company SACO. Figures released by the company show that more business travellers stayed in Birmingham than at any of its 12 other locations across the UK throughout 2008. The city beat other popular business travel destinations such as London, Bristol, Farnborough and Reading. Bookings at SACO across all its locations were up last year from 2007 by 35 per cent to 10,807 bookings and 18 per cent of these were for Birmingham bookings.

Jennie Buckley, apartments manager at SACO in Birmingham, said: “As the ‘second city’, Birmingham has a varied economy with all the infrastructure to support it, helping to create a thriving business travel industry. For example, it has the second largest airport in the UK outside London and is at the hub of the UK’s road and rail network.

“As businesses look to cut back on their travel budgets, serviced apartments are an attractive option – for the same price as a hotel of an equivalent standard, guests get a lot more space and privacy and are ideal if more than one person is travelling as we have a wide choice of two-bedroom apartments. They also allow guests to save money on expensive restaurant bills and extra hotel charges.”

SACO has 54 serviced apartments in Birmingham at Edgbaston and Brindleyplace. Each apartment comes with a fully equipped kitchen allowing guests to cook for themselves. Guests can stay for any length of time - from one night to one year or more.

SACO has 18 locations in total across 12 towns and cities in the UK. It also has a global network of 12,000 apartments across 35 countries, which are owned by other serviced apartment providers.