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Every industry has its quirky characters, and in hospitality, often that is what makes guest return – a memorable face in hotel (if they’re memorable for the right reasons), is a marketing technique all of its own.
But there’s quirky and then there’s bonkers. This week a chap in Essex decided that he couldn’t be bothered with the rigmarole of the normal channels for selling a property, and so has put his £1m hotel up as a raffle prize. Tickets are £1,000 a piece.
Gordon and Blossom Hoyles have owned the 14-bedroom Hotel Continental in Dovercourt for 18 years and decided to raffle the property after being told that it could take up to two years to sell it
Gordon Hoyles, 78, told the Daily Mirror: “One morning I woke up at 3:30am, went to the bar and said to our night porter I would raffle the hotel. I started to look into it and found we could do it as a prize draw. We got a solicitor and started putting it together.” He added: ““Blossom and I think it’s time for a change. I haven’t got much time to spare and I don’t want to be arguing over conveyancing trifles at 80 plus.
“Going might be a bit traumatic – a bit painful, but having decided to go we want to go quickly. It seems a good thing to give the winner an instant, exciting, life-changing, lucky day.”
On the one hand, it’s a big risk – he’ll need to sell 1,000 very expensive raffle tickets to realise the hotel’s market value – but on the other, you can see why he wanted to find another way. Anyone who has bought or sold a property of any kind knows how drawn out it can be, and whilst it is absolutely bonkers, one can’t help feeling the urge to say ‘fair enough’. Whatever works.
