E-bike rentals: A risk-free new solution for hotels

Hotel Owner speaks to Des Lenahan, director of Northern Light Partners, about its new e-bike rental solution for hotels. After working with the UK automotive sector, he branched out to hotels and has found success linking groups across the UK and Europe with different solutions to boost their marketing profile and profit margins.

Billed as a risk-free new solution for hotels to capitalise on the growing appetite for adding an eco-friendly experience as part of their offering to guests while boosting extra revenue, we get the lowdown on the latest venture, specifically tailored to boost hotel activity during the shoulder seasons.

What is the concept?

We have developed a bespoke two-year e-bike rental programme that offers a perfect and easy-to-use solution for hotel businesses. The e-bike rental solutions are designed with tailor-made inventory needs to give your business the opportunity to add value by generating more customers and increasing your revenue for the next few years.

It is risk-free, forward thinking and sustainable, providing customers with adventure and hotels with a no-strings attached extra product at their disposal.

What was the inspiration behind the solution?

Just as with the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be the hospitality industry that is a primary casualty of the cost of living crisis. And so, hotels are on the lookout for ways in which to increase their margins without risk. A key target area was shoulder seasons – typically less busy tourism periods in which hotels are always looking to boost traffic and income with seasonal activities.

The e-bike rental solution was the perfect match. In the shoulder season, from late spring into summer and early to late autumn, the weather is still perfect for cycling.

After developing the concept, I went to both a number of independent hotels, with only one or a handful of sites, and some of the bigger groups with a draft model to get feedback. I wanted to get a sense of where they anticipated any challenges to the product were, but the What do you think, you know, where are the bumps? Where are the challenges in this? The feedback was resoundingly positive. This was an idea that worked.

What makes you ideally positioned to take this idea forward?

This solution really is an intersection between all my experience, knowledge and passion. The many years I’ve worked with Hotels has been in providing and helping them understand how they can work better, from boosting their marketing profile to their profit margin. Ultimately, I understand how these businesses work, and I can help them work better.

All that experience has allowed me to build something that really fits seamlessly with what Hotels want to provide. As we approach a period where the market is going to be a bit tight, it offers a solution that is low-risk, highly attractive and logistically as easy as it gets. It’s a perfect confluence between opportunity and timing.

Furthermore, every hotel that joins up to our bike rental solutions programme will have access and exposure to our marketing offerings. They will have a directory link that will be streaming out on local TV ads and regions, and across National newspaper sites, of which we have got around 240 of them on a daily basis. So not only does it provide a new attraction for guests, it has the capacity to boost the media profile for smaller hotels without the manpower to compete with larger corporations, increasing its potential client base.

What makes this solution attractive for Hotels?

Firstly, it’s cost effective: unlike leasing, the beauty of the rental solution is that the hotel can write off the annual rental costs against their tax, ensuring maximum efficiency. By adding an eco-friendly and sustainable tourism benefit to the guest experience, it offers hotels an extra avenue of attraction for potential tourists, especially when looking to boost activity outside the peak seasons.

Even at the mercy of the notoriously unpredictable UK weather cycle, this solution pays for itself even if it was to run for only 20% of the year. In reality, its operating window will far exceed this. Adding up the benefits of guest experience, marketing exposure, security of investment and experience behind the solution, it is a slam-dunk choice for hotels.