Looking back on 10 years of Cityus. A letter from our present to our past.

It has officially been ten years – well, technically eleven, but we were a little too busy growing to throw an anniversary celebration exactly on time.

Looking at our cross-border operations, pan-European market, our amazing team, and our global corporate partners, it is fascinating to think about how it all started in 2015.

With vision and determination, we took on our very first furnished apartment in Morges, Switzerland and entered the serviced apartment industry as a start-up.
Now, looking back over a decade, the entire journey feels surreal.

Here is the story of how those early days transformed into the Cityus of today. Ready for a quick unfold?

The Map got a lot bigger…

On day one, our entire universe revolved around a single furnished apartment in Morges. We celebrated every booking, troubleshot guests’ Wi-Fi issues ourselves and learned something new every single day.

Ten years later, Cityus has expanded across Switzerland and Europe, built a strong presence in major business hubs, and now manages more than 400 premium serviced apartments for corporate travellers and relocating professionals.

The team has been so focused on building the next chapter that we almost forgot to stop and celebrate how far we’ve come.

As years passed by, we stepped outside our home borders and scaled our corporate housing options into international capitals like Luxembourg and Paris.
Also, we officially outgrew our original name, At Home Switzerland, to Cityus “You’re home in any city”. A change that perfectly reflects a much grander vision: becoming a premier Swiss operator of furnished rental apartments across global cities. Need a hint of our next stop? London and Milan have certainly caught our attention.

From startup to an award-winning SME

In the early days, we spent endless nights tracking guest feedback and dealing with the unpredictable challenges of daily operations. Over the last decade, however, we have grown into an award-winning structured and mature SME.

Wondering how? We adopted the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in 2024, a business operating framework designed to align and strengthen six key areas of an organisation: Vision, People, Data, Issues, Process and Traction. Alongside this, we introduced clear performance metrics, structured our teams, and embraced advanced technology to automate many of our processes and make our day-to-day operations more efficient.

What we’re most proud of, however, is that despite all the improvements and necessary steps put in place, we’ve never lost sight of what matters most: the human experience. Whether it’s a relocating professional, an HR manager, a corporate client or a direct booking, they’ll still be speaking directly with a member of the Cityus team whenever they need support.

Technology helps us work smarter, but it’s our people who make the difference.

Sustainability

We realised quite early that we have a big real social and environmental responsibility. And we wanted it to be practical, honest and transparent changes rather than just a corporate buzzword.
We optimised energy usage across our properties like the landmark Three Point residential towers in Zurich. On the social side, we built local partnerships with Swiss associations like Wir Lerner Weiter and NoOps to recycle and redistribute old IT hardware and laptops to individuals and families in need across Switzerland.

Since 2021, we’ve also proudly supported and sponsored Nouvelle Planète, helping fund sustainable development projects, including the construction of wells in villages across Burkina Faso and the provision of beehives to support local agriculture in Senegal.

This approach also led us to one of our proudest organisational achievements: earning us two consecutive EcoVadis Gold Medals, placing Cityus in the top 5% of over 100,000 companies evaluated globally for sustainability and ethical governance.

And we are not yet to our most exciting part yet….

Our next stop: The Alpine Slopes

While we figured out urban business travel, we stepped into something new and exciting.
We took all of our revenue management, corporate sales, and guest experience expertise and applied it to the short-term leisure and seminar sector.

We grew! From serviced apartments in Europe, corporate housing in Switzerland, and extended stays in Zurich… We launched our mountain branch in Valais, Switzerland, now present in Crans-Montana and Champéry. We also onboarded and are operating Latitude Champéry – a gorgeous alpine branded residence project in the Swiss Alps which opened in 2025. We get to bring the exact premium standard of comfort and feel to mountain retreats, creating a setting where corporate groups can hold executive seminars and remote workers can settle right near the slopes.

The real numbers that matter

Every milestone tells a part of our story. While awards and performance reflect our growth, they are ultimately the result of the trust we’ve built and the people who’ve made it possible.

Over the last ten years, we have maintained an average occupancy rate of over 92% across all our locations. In the past two years alone, we’ve also been recognised on the international stage, winning Best Exterior Design in 2025 and Best Property (21–70 Units) in 2026 at the Serviced Apartment Awards in London, while also being highly commended in the Best 2026 Operator (200+ Units) category.

We’re incredibly proud of these achievements, but they don’t tell the whole story.

When we look back on the last decade, the awards and performance metrics are milestones worth celebrating. What means the most to us, however, is the people behind them. It’s watching our team grow, learn, cross-train and support one another through every stage of our journey. It’s the trust our corporate clients, property partners and Destination Service Providers (DSPs) have placed in us year after year. It’s the relationships we’ve built, the challenges we’ve overcome together, and the confidence our partners have in us to look after their people and properties as if they were our own.

If we could give our younger selves one piece of advice, it would simply be this: slow down and take the time to appreciate what you’re building. When you’re focused on the next apartment, the next client or the next milestone, it’s easy to forget how far you’ve already come.

The last ten years have taken us from a small local business with a handful of apartments to a recognised operator managing premium properties across Europe. We’ve learned, adapted, grown and celebrated countless milestones along the way. Most importantly, we’ve stayed true to what has always defined Cityus: putting people first.

This anniversary isn’t the finish line. It’s another milestone in a journey that’s only just getting started.

Here’s to the next chapter.

The Cityus Team