Benefits of independent hoteliers partnering together

One could be forgiven for thinking that branded chains dominate the UK hotel industry. In many ways they do, of course, but according to a comprehensive report by Melvin Gold, which was commissioned to coincide with the Independent Hotel Show in 2016, a little over 50% of all hotels in this country are in fact independently owned. That’s a lot of rooms fighting to be sold against the marketing muscle of larger companies with their sophisticated loyalty programmes and sheer buying power.

The advantages of going it alone are obvious too. Complete control over everything apart from demand, which usually ebbs and flows with the economic cycle, and the unavoidable costs of doing business such as food prices, wages, commission payable to agents and bank interest to name just a few.

But this puts the difference too starkly. In practise most independents have aligned themselves with others to benefit from a collective effort to bend the rules in their favour. The largest and perhaps most successful example of this is Best Western, a consortium representing around 300 properties in Great Britain which enables its members to access a national reservations system and highly advantageous purchasing terms.

With similar objectives, though carefully positioned at the top end of the market, we find several competing alternatives each bringing distinct advantages: Relais & Chateaux, Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), Preferred Hotels and the organisation I have had the privilege to manage since 2000: Pride of Britain. Gone are the days when hoteliers were expected to choose one and pledge lifetime commitment, now it is perfectly acceptable to belong to more and to change as often as you like. This is a competitive arena in which performance can be judged on actual bookings as well as on the value of exposure to potential clients. In almost 30 years of working in hotel marketing I have never witnessed so much effort and creativity, on the part of all these organisations, to deliver tangible returns on investment. So now is a pretty good time to hop on the bus if you haven’t already done so.

There are of course other ways to benefit from partnership with fellow independents. The British Hospitality Association (BHA) looks out for its 40,000 establishments by sharing information on the laws and regulations affecting the hotel and caterings sector and has become a powerful lobby group at national level – for example, in arguing for minimum restrictions to freedom of movement for the EU workers we rely upon. In my view it’s worth being a member for the legal helpline alone.

So far, I have not mentioned what our customers think about all this. At Pride of Britain we like to believe that membership is seen as a seal of approval; a guarantee of the quality of hospitality they will receive. The same is true of those aforementioned. Positioning with like-minded hoteliers is key to selecting the right collection to join – there is no point in being the only luxury spa hotel in a group that specialises in budget conference venues, nor in being a restaurant with rooms alongside vast city hotels. Customers are savvy, and they soon get to know which brands chime with their own preferences. They probably don’t care whether a hotel is independent or not, for them it’s all about the experience.

Much has been written about the power of brands and whether it will continue to prevail. Here’s my personal theory. For most of the 200,000 years of human evolution, we have lived as members of tribes. Survival has depended on everyone in the tribe sticking together – all stay to fight the enemy or all run away – and we have come to recognise symbols as proof of membership of the same group. Pick the right tribe and you can’t go far wrong.

Peter Hancock is the chief executive of Pride of Britain Hotels. This feature first appeared in the Feb 2017 issue of Hotel Owner.