Luxury London Guy

Back in the Eighties, you could not walk down a street without passing a bright-and-breezy High Street travel agency! They were every would-be traveller’s first port of call, where families, couples and friends flipped through page upon page of travel brochures and spent hours discussing the right package holidays. Since then the travel industry has undergone an enormous transformation, a revolution if you will. In fact, with the demise of many of the high street stores you’d be forgiven for thinking the age of the “Travel Advisor” was dead. After all, who needs a travel brochure or indeed actual people when …

Read moreWhy Travel Advisors are Here to Stay!

Without any doubt, the current most talked-about example of influencer marketing in action is last year’s doomed Fyre Festival. The Netflix documentary Fyre:The Greatest Party That Never Happened tells the full story, which begins with an exclusive collection of world-famous influencers hyping the festival to secure vast levels of investment. As effective a strategy as this turned out to be, the person who really influenced the public view of Fyre was one Twitter user with fewer than 500 followers.  He posted a now-infamous image (of a limp cheese sandwich) that trended within seconds, eventually bringing the entire event to its knees. …

Read moreInfluencer Marketing: a match made in heaven?

Healthy guests are happy guests: the importance of wellness in independent hotels As an independent hotelier, what’s your most important new year’s resolution for 2019? If like the majority of us you’ve woken up in January thinking “I ate all the mince pies and I need to do something about it then consider this, your guests are probably thinking along similar lines. Perhaps it’s time to incorporate a well-structured and thought out health and wellness program as part of your sales strategy. Way back in 2016, keynote speakers at the Boutique and Lifestyle Leadership Symposium discussed next-generation hotel trends in …

Read moreHealth, Wellness and the Independent Hotel!

While London, Paris, Barcelona, LA, Shanghai and Rome are all wildly different cities, they have something special in common. That something is growth.  The exponential rise of the ‘city break’ in recent years, fuelled by frequent, cheap and accessible flights, mean our natural thirst for travel can be more easily quenched than ever before. Cities are becoming busier, with growing numbers of people arriving in search of work, rest and play.   According to a recent Guardian article on tourism, over 100 million people walk along La Rambla, Barcelona’s famous shopping street, every year.  Meanwhile, London is coping with increased visitor …

Read moreIncentive Travel: how the Independent Hotel can stand above the crowd

Travel and hospitality has seen unprecedented change over the past two decades, mostly driven by technology.  Online marketing has led to increased competition, putting pressure on room rates and driving stringent consumer expectations.  After all, with so many options to choose from, it is far easier to demand exactly what you want. The one aspect that remains constant throughout change is this: people do business with people.  Today, globalisation and an increasingly competitive marketplace mean that strong, dual-sided industry partnerships are more important than ever before. Highlighting the resilience of strong relationships. Tom Corcoran, founder of property investment trust FelCor, …

Read moreThe Power of Relationship!

In an increasingly aggressive marketplace, standing out in the luxury crowd is becoming more of a challenge for independent hotels – particularly when there are more of them now than ever before. The 2018 PwC Hotels Forecast predicts slower growth of around 0.3% for London in 2019, with Brexit-related uncertainty, deceleration in general UK economic growth, and increased room supply all adding to the mix. Given these increased pressures and competition, it is more pertinent than ever to be able to differentiate from your peers and to leverage your contacts and networks for business opportunities. These can be provided by …

Read moreConsidering Representation, Think Twice!

While it seems everybody has a different opinion about Brexit, one thing most of us can agree on is the amount of uncertainty our momentous decision has wrought.  We already live in a different country to the one we inhabited back in 2016, and there are plenty of unidentified changes still to come. Unfortunately, as is so often the British way, pessimism is abound!  But while reports of stockpiled food and medicine make for sober reading, there are still many reasons to be cheerful.  Particularly for those of us in the luxury travel industry, an exciting host of potential opportunities …

Read moreBrexit… An Opportunity for the Independent Hotelier?