Making Plan B matter

Rounding off 2021 in ‘Plan B’ wasn't what we, or the hospitality sector, had anticipated.

However, Plan B is a long way from how we had started 2021 when we were mandated to close our doors. From spring ‘21 onwards, when we’d finally navigated our way to a ‘new normal’, ?our business flew thanks to the domestic leisure market and our very loyal B2B clients. How 2022 will play out is yet to be seen, one certainty is that there is still a significant way to go to bring a sense of normality and regularity to the UK hospitality sector and to the wider international tourism industry.?

The effects of the last 18-months have bought about a change in our guests’ behaviours and an opportunity for us to address our offering with new products and experiences. We’ve noted how the ?global move to remote working has brought about digital fatigue and we’re seeing our corporate clients veer away from screen time meetings in favour of time spent face to face. And we’ve seen how leisure guests are keen to make up on lost time with more socialising, more shared experiences and more fun.?Add in a renewed appreciation by us all of the environment and a heightened conversation around psychological wellbeing and we are very confident that we’ve got it right with our moniker ‘to create happiness in amazing places’.?

With our insights we used the early part of 2021 to start developing new concepts beyond the traditional confines of our hotels four walls. We embraced wood-fired and outdoor dining at Lainston House - we encouraged our guests into all of our kitchen gardens - we went hyper local with our food and drink at Pennyhill Park and we set out on a very regenerative and ethical approach to our spas and their treatments. There will be more developments in 2022 along with a heightened focus on how we demonstrate our wider impact on the planet and our people.?

We have always strived to put our people first and to highlight our commitment, in November, we moved the entire workforce on to the real Living Wage along with an annual salary review which takes place every April. We are now finalising becoming an accredited Living Wage Employer and join more than 9,000?other UK businesses who too believe their staff deserve a wage which meets?everyday?needs.

Like all my peers, finding new talent has been highly competitive and it’s shaken the industry at a time when guests expect more and we’ve less help on the front line. Throughout 2021 we bolstered the work we do to cultivate education, development, career growth and reward. We’ve created new training courses; we’ve learned that hybrid training can apply to our own in-house training too and we’ve widened our Academy programmes.

Happy people are our brand biggest ambassadors; be they happy guests or happy employees.???

2021 saw us celebrate 40 years in business - it wasn't the Birthday celebration we'd anticipated but it did give us time to?appreciate what we’ve achieved since my dad started the company. One familiar trait to run through these four decades is the ownership our family takes around sustainability and the environment.?It’s engrained in our philosophy and has led us to taking a bold new step for the business by joining the B Corp community. The certification gives us a platform to recognise the informal practices that we’d been applying the company for some time.?Being a B Corp means we now have a globally respected methodology to measure, improve and hold us accountable in relation to the impact we have on the people and planet around us. We join a community of amazing brands who put their purpose, people and impact on the planet in equal importance to the pursuit of pure profit.?Being the first hotel company in the UK to achieve B Corp certification is a fantastic start to our next decade and we hope many of our friends in the business of hospitality will make the move to underline the importance of people and planet over profit.?

While 2021 was not the fast-track route out of Covid we’d all anticipated it has accelerated innovation and enabled us to focus on our people and their development.

We’ve made ambitious moves for the future and proved that even having a ‘Plan B’ can create opportunity.??

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