Indie hotels are a cornerstone of British business – we need to create tech to support them

The leisure and hospitality industry, as a whole, has taken a real hit in the past three years. Forced closures, travel restrictions, and staff shortages have all taken their toll. This has led to unbelievable pressures on hoteliers, with many of them looking to adapt and change practices in order to stay afloat. These include offering and seeking, where possible, more business agreements and deals with other businesses to ensure occupancy during the week, which is typically a quieter period. In 2023, the market size of the industry is forecast to reach £19.76bn, making it not only a crucial industry to the livelihood of many people employed through hotels, but also to the overall economy. This leads to the critical question: what can we do to better support these businesses? After all, they are businesses that need to turn a profit, which (I think) is something people are in danger of forgetting. One of the biggest challenges to business survival and success is late payments. While it might be easy to think that all hotels are paid on departure of the guest, invoices are a regular part of the business model. However, cross-industry, around 50,000 businesses are pushed into insolvency each year in the UK alone as a direct result of late invoice payments. Alongside the ‘normal’ trials and tribulations of running a business day-to-day, this adds additional – and arguably unnecessary challenges – for hoteliers looking to secure a steady cash flow, increase revenue, and maintain profitability. In turn, this can have a negative impact on the mental health of those running the business. Especially in independent and smaller businesses, it’s the one person who is already trying to cover a multitude of roles. This is all in an industry where just under one in four people (23.8%) reported mental health problems. Until now, there has been a lack of affordable and simple to use tools to assist. Onboarding and embracing new technology can be a daunting prospect for many, however the long-term benefits to hoteliers using this model can be game-changing, especially for those looking to address the issue of non and late-payments of invoices. What is crucial is that any tools are simple to use and easily embed within existing cloud software. For example, Nimbla Sync, a policy designed to prevent the risk of non-payment for up to 12 months, allows users to monitor real-time customer risk insights to help grow sales, secure cashflow finance, and reduce credit risk problems and bad debts. This technology pulls data points from a number of sources and a score is then given to each invoice, giving business owners a clear picture of the likelihood of whether individual invoices will be paid on-time or are likely to default. It also monitors changes in risk to ensure companies are given early warning of potential problems. With protracted default, hoteliers can make a claim before insolvency, whilst protecting trading relationships. All of this ensures that funding and a steady cashflow is available to avoid ‘panic mode’, and potentially, insolvency. In essence, when it comes to spending hard-earned pounds, technology which addresses a business’ pain-point adds value to operations and supports growth should be prioritised. Every business will have its own individual needs, but there are some pressures (such as late payments) which impact almost all of us at one point or another and need addressing across the board to increase certainty, which helps business owners plan for the future.

Indie hotels are a cornerstone of British business – we need to create tech to support them

By Elizabeth Jenkin, the CEO of Nimbla, a digital insurance platform that uses algorithmic analysis to deliver real-time insurance protection of B2B customer trade credit

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