Aim for a bigger UK market share

There has never been a more serious time for hoteliers to invest in sales and marketing, says Stuart Harrison.

For hoteliers who understand and have in place the disciplines of how to reach target markets, there has never been more urgency to gain a greater share of the domestic business. I would go further and say there has never been a more focused opportunity to increase share from northern and central European countries.

There are opportunities to replace business from the Americas. For groups and independent hotels which have prepared the groundwork, are enlightened, can identify the whole marketing mix, have intelligence on balanced target markets and who understand the long-term cost of building genuine relationships with the customer, now is the time to see those activities produce fruit.

The UK short-break market should continue to see growth over and above the 18% year-on-year increase already experienced by some operators. People will continue to want to travel. They may well choose to discover more of their own country, spending time on more short breaks and UK holidays to replace the long-haul adventure.

The need to escape the appalling scenes beamed into living rooms is very compelling. Do you have measures in place to attract these customers, or will your complacency in the good times and your underinvestment in sales now come home to roost?

Seven million UK residents took a short break last year. Surely with current factors in place we can together substantially increase that number. And when you add into the domestic pot the potential of the 2.2 million UK residents taking overseas short breaks, it would be short-sighted to consider slashing marketing budgets.

Over the past four years we have seen a 30% increase in UK conferences going abroad. The strong pound and cheaper air fares have made it extremely competitive against British locations. This will now change and opportunities are there to win the business back to Britain. Again, if you have not prepared the foundations of a relationship with the meetings industry through consistent product and service you will be way behind in the race.

For those with the vision and the nerve, now is also the time to invest in your product. Why not take the opportunity to combine the current cost of capital with the downturn and create new product ready for better yields. Ask those who took the opportunity during the Gulf War and the last recession.

Of course the challenge is massive and in London in particular, unpredictably open-ended. Yet there are opportunities, in part, to replace those losses and those with a history of investing in the quality of sales and marketing - both people and plans - in the good times and maintaining them in times of uncertainty, will have a future.

Stuart Harrison runs the Profitable Hotel Company and is a Visiting Fellow of Oxford Brookes University