Taylor you're own silver lining

Robert Holland, managing director, UK & Ireland, HotelPartner Revenue Management, calls on hotels to create their own demand in fallow years.

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This year is a big year for Jane Austen fans, who will be celebrating 250 years since the birth of the author. Leading the way in the festivities will be Bath, which the author criticised as being too bustling. It will certainly be bustling - and with bustles - during the celebrations, but it will be a peak in an otherwise quiet year for the UK.

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No Olympics, no Taylor Swift, there should be a fillip around late August and early September with the Women’s Rugby World Cup and you maybe in luck if the Gallagher brothers have have decided to grace your doorstep this summer, but other than that we can look forward to a sedate business as usual. This is good news in terms of alternative accommodation: following the Olympics in Paris last year, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said that the platform would focus increasingly on areas of very high demand, taking the heat out of those markets by adding supply on top.

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It is this heat, of course, which drives those peak ADRs. So with Chesky looking elsewhere, there is hope of having the market to ourselves. And please don’t think that your revenue managers can magic a rabbit out of a hat: we are there to manage demand rather than create it.

Looking to do something positive in a year like 2025 is not without its challenges. Looking ahead to April, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced last year that the Budget would mean an increase in

employers’ National Insurance, which, with a new lower threshold, will be felt particularly in our sector.? According to UKHospitality, currently, more than 1.2 million hospitality staff are not eligible for employer NICs. In April, that number will be cut to just over 450,000 people, making more than 774,000 workers newly eligible for employer NICs.

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In the upcoming Spring Statement, Reeves is expected to move from putting costs on hotels to putting costs onto their guests, with rumours suggesting that she will bring in a UK-wide bed tax. This will join the 5% plus VAT Visitor Levy due to come it at the beginning of May in Edinburgh and possibly a ￡1.25 per night charge in Wales, which is currently being debated. Manchester already has a ￡1 a night surcharge on rooms in hotels and serviced apartments in its business investment district and part of Salford.

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Councils are calling for tourism levies around the UK, to meet the additional costs felt in popular destinations and to fill gaps in their budgets, much as Reeves would like to do. The issues for the sector are that it affects visitors disproportionally - day trippers shoulder none of the burden, despite also using the local facilities? - and that, at some point, there must come a tipping point for visitors, where passed-on NICs and now taxes combine to act as a deterrent. We are not the first country to impose additional costs on our visitors, with a number of European cities already doing so, but in addition to having some of the haughtiest VAT and Airport Passenger Duties, this is likely to make inbound visitors think twice.

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Add to this the launch of the ETA (electronic travel authorisation) since the start of the year and it is starting to feel as though powers beyond our control are steering us in a direction where our customers - at least those from overseas - might find it easier and cheaper to go elsewhere.

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This is where the imaginative hotelier can step in. Bath is not the only Jane Austen option out there. She also lived in and around Winchester and Southampton, helping to spread the anniversary options around.

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There are also the existing draws to the UK: Wimbledon, the Grand National, the London Marathon. Just because they happen every year does not mean there isn’t the chance to do something different and set yourself apart. Guests will pay for a memorable experience, so give them something more than strawberries and cream.

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Wherever you are, you can become a destination in your own right. People want to enjoy unique experiences they can tell others about and the best way to do this is to create your own. Perhaps you have a local specialty cheese, perhaps your region is known for its folk music, perhaps it’s home to a community of potters.

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Lean into this to create tasting, listenings, samplings, even an annual festival.

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And once you have created your event, it’s yours. You can repeat it every year so that even if Taylor is taking a year off and an unearthed Jane Austen text reveals the author and all her friends loathed your town, you are the master of your demand. Whatever the weather.