Is recovery underway? - Insights from HOSPACE 2022

This year’s HOSPACE was a great chance to catch up with old friends, new speakers and a host of top suppliers to the sector.?Great day in London - and a packed Tube plus glittering Oxford Street Christmas lights demonstrated that, despite the Chancellor’s best efforts, recovery is well and truly underway, for some at least.

The conference took place once again at the excellent Royal Lancaster Hotel – so handy for Lancaster Gate tube and fast becoming the perennial venue of choice for this event, it seems.?With “Building Future Prosperity” as its theme, speaker after speaker gave ample value for money with great insights and takeaways.?An early highlight of the day for me was Brian Reeves (ex Aviio and GOPPAR Digital and now in his new guise, RateAdvisor.?Plus his other four new sub-brands that I’m sure we’ll get to know.?Brian is always strong on Direct vs OTA, and even if he’s not going to beat Booking.com on his own, his call to action to the industry should not go unheeded.

Not sure anyone really knows what it is, but the session on the Metaverse was lively enough, and late stand-in Peter Gould seemed to be on firm footing with his thoughts here.?And his blue-chip worldwide client list – Atlantis The Palm anyone?!?We’ve all got to wake up and smell the roses, was the message, the metaverse won’t be here in 10 years; it’ll be here in 10 weeks!?If it isn’t already.

the metaverse won’t be here in 10 years, it’ll be here in 10 weeks!?If it isn’t already.

Jerome Wise of Amadeus Hospitality had a good grip on stats (who knew that Amadeus GDS gives them data on no less than 55% of global flights), showing that not only was UK occupancy back near 2019 levels, but ADR is roaring 15% ahead.? David Parker of the Royal College of Physicians was a breath of fresh air with his partnership marketing ideas, and Matt Broom of PizzaExpress showed why we in the hotel sector should listen to restaurant tech and marketing experts more than we currently do.

Of course, you can’t have a hotel conference these days without coming up with some handy hints for staff recruitment and retention, and hoteliers Andrew Henning ( Grosvenor House Suites ), Judi B. ( Watergate Bay Hotel ) and Michael Clitheroe FIH CMgr MCMI ( Balmer Lawn Hotel ) delivered in spades.?We’ve known of Watergate Bay’s market-leading tactics for some time now, but Michael’s effect on turnover and morale at Balmer Lawn (a then-underrated hotel I stayed at a few years back) has been tremendous.

For me, though, the stand-out speaker at this year’s HOSPACE was Stockholm-based Martin Chevalley of Innspire .?Not sure whether he had one too many mulled wines last night at the new ABBA Voyage event in East London, but his demonstration of how tech-enabled his recent vacation was (with a paddle board on stage) was fantastic.?And what a happy-looking family, seems he’s also got the work/life balance right too!?

So congratulations to Jane and the team at HOSPA, and thoroughly looking forward to working closer with them soon sitting on the Hotel Marketing Association exec team, and as we look towards the 15th - The National Hotel Marketing Conference – www.hotelmarketingconference.co.uk - on 27th April next year.