Every night of each week there are plenty of staff forced to remain far from home due to work commitments, but the entire company hotel market has evolved greatly over the years. The increase of chains like Premier inn and Travel Lodge have decimated the independent B&B and little hotel sector in cities like Warrington and Frodsham and they have in effect done what Tesco and other retailers have done to our high streets over the last decade.
Today these powerful chains controlled from their massive HQ's have new plans to brush up all of the smaller and weaker competition developing smaller hotels on mini sites with only fifty bedrooms in secondary locations. Additionally, they're usually providing prices below sensible hotel economics at weekend, that I imagine adds to turnover instead of profitableness and helps suck the last hope of respectable occupancy levels then viable profitableness out of the independent sector.
The independent sector has been without the tools to compete and a little lost and doesn't appear to understand which way to jump – Visit Britain has been pushing this sector to manoeuvre ever upwards – quality, quality, quality – but this comes at a price. The one that pays this price is after all the Guest. Nowadays we tend to have various comparatively expensive independent little operators – this really does make the Premier Inns of this world happy, as this policy has removed whole layers of competition moving it outside of their market place.
However the guests that flock, guided by some default mechanism, to book Premier Inn or Travel Lodge nightly ought to be careful what they wish for. There's proof that, as the independents slowly disappear, the massive boys are getting even more dominant and therefore the prices charged even in an economic downturn are rising – when booking a hotel in Warrington for instance, Premier Inns can usually charge 70 a night for one room with breakfast – without full Wi-Fi access!
However, it's possible to add interest and not costs, it's doable for “Budget to not be Boring” and this trick is being done very well by some new independent budget hotels in Warrington. They have removed themselves from the corporate boredom of the massive static brands and have developed a lot of guest innovation to keep them loyal and returning, however have conjointly ensured that they will keep overheads and costs down, thus will still compete well on value.
Martin Wynn
