Achieving local hospitality at scale — and from a distance

Founded by two brothers, Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments operates more than 200 fully-equipped units in Copenhagen and more recently, Aarhus, Denmark. They provide an authentic and immersive experience, striving to help guests experience local life and culture while avoiding mass tourism. With that in mind, they hire local designers to create their interiors with an emphasis on original details and each property’s unique features, sourcing as much as possible from area brands and manufacturers.

The pair got their start a decade ago with two listings on Airbnb, and were one of the platform’s first professional hosts in Copenhagen, helping them to define — and elevate — the short-term rental category in the city. Today, the property management company employs a team of six, and relies on their small size to stay agile and maintain their homegrown feel.

Having ambitious growth plans, Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments needed to figure out how to scale their operations without compromising their mission of providing authentically local stays. In 2024, those objectives were put to the test when the company had the opportunity to open a 70-unit aparthotel in Aarhus, more than three hours from their base in Copenhagen. Daniel and Jacob first needed to assess from afar whether the move would be a financially strategic decision. Once that was established, they had to ready the property, ensuring each unit reflected the uniqueness they desired and offered high quality service from day one. Adding to their challenge was a desire to keep a lean team, even as they expanded to new locations.

Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments needed a system that would not only support their mission but also help them stay ahead of the curve. Having outgrown their previous property management system (PMS), they turned to Guesty in 2022 in large part because of its robust marketplace of 170+ third-party integrations and Open API. Guesty provided a superior PMS and channel management system along with the ability to connect to many of the top software solutions for short-term rentals.

When it came to the Aarhus expansion, delegating many of their processes to Guesty’s platform and supporting team enabled them to take a chance on a remote location. Using the dynamic pricing and revenue management tool PriceLabs, which integrates directly with the Guesty platform, enabled Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments to determine the profitability potential of the new location and to ensure that the aparthotel units were priced correctly for maximum occupancy and revenue.

Guesty’s premiere partner status with top OTAs, seamless data syncs, and easy onboarding of new properties made it easy to gain visibility and hit the ground running with the new property, and third-party integrations like RemoteLock enabled the team to manage property access from afar. Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments also relied heavily on Guesty’s 24/7 Guest Communication Services to ensure guests received a high level of service from day one.

With the success of their Aarhus aparthotel launch and a strategy for scalability in place, Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments aims to operate 300–500 units across Denmark by 2027, and an additional 100–250 units in locations across Europe by 2028. With the aid of technological solutions that enable remote management, the team has managed to open new properties without having to grow their number of full-time employees. Instead they rely on outsourced contractors for cleaning and guest communication, adding team members on-site only for supervision, to ensure the properties are kept at the highest standards. It seems that Daniel & Jacob’s Apartments has cracked the code to run their 200 units smoothly. “We’re always surprised when we look at some of our older or smaller properties how long it has actually been since Daniel or I have been there ourselves” Jacob says, “and then you look at the reviews and the feedback and everything is running great.”