1 Hotel cover.indd - Nicola Cottam

Industry overview
The development is significant: hotel owners know that guests are reluctant to stay in the hotel to eat. Hotels are,
after all, largely a place to sleep and store luggage, while the guest gets on with the business of exploring a new
region, visiting friends or passing time until that breakfast meeting.
Most people’s experience of hotel food will be as part of a captive group – at an event such as a wedding, or at
a conference, where the ubiquitous I-wonder-what-that-was-last-night buffet is more an advert for the chef’s
versatility with leftovers than any culinary skills.
Unless your hotel is in an isolated location, chances are that your restaurant will not be fully booked of an
evening.
The budget sector has largely taken itself out of the F&B equation, but for those hotels that must have one, if not
several bars and restaurants, upgrading their offering is necessary if guests are going to spend more than the room
rate. Just as the number and style of restaurants in the high street is multiplying and encouraging guests out of
their rooms, so consumers are becoming more demanding of the food they eat in and out of the home.
In another development, the beleaguered Alias Group was given cause for hope after being acquired by Swire
Properties for an undisclosed fee, thought to be around £40m. Christie & Co acted for LHM on the sale of the
48-room Alias Hotel Kandinsky in Cheltenham, the 46-room Alias Hotel Barcelona in Exeter and the 21-room
Alias Hotel Seattle in Brighton.
The deal was Swire’s first acquisition in the UK property market. The group is committed to the further development
of the Alias brand and will be working to achieve this with the current management team.
In March, Abode, Andrew Brownsword and Michelin-starred chef Michael Caines’ hotel company, acquired the
61-room Hotel Rossetti in Manchester from Alias Hotels for an unnamed figure, rumoured to be in excess of
£10m. The group opened its first hotel in 2005, in Exeter, and is also operational in Glasgow and Canterbury, with
a Chester hotel and newly acquired Hotel Rosetti in development.
Abode plans to build into a major group of boutique establishments. Each hotel will have a champagne bar, tavern,
café and restaurant, with the food and drink a main attraction. Local chefs using local food will recreate Caines’
signature dishes.
The success of these small, branded boutique outlets has drawn the attention of the big brands, with InterContinental
Hotels Group launching its Indigo brand. The chain was at six sites at the time of going to press, with 20
hotels in development. Although all six hotels are in the US, the company is expected to take the brand worldwide,
offering what it describes as ‘hip, cool, lifestyle hotels’.
The expansion of Indigo and its ilk is not, however, seen as a threat by the boutique sector, with key operators
seeing the global chains as unable to match their service levels and attention to detail.
March 2007 Hotel Report Guide to UK Hotels 2007 l © William Reed Publishing 10