Coast stories

02 October 2001 by
Coast stories

Fallout from the terrorist attacks in the USA two weeks ago is unlikely to affect tourism in north Cornwall - its problems are much closer to home. Rosalind Mullen reports in the last of our series on tourism around the UK.

Ironically, foot-and-mouth is one of the reasons why north Cornwall has had one of its best summer seasons in recent years. Much to hotelier Keith Richardson's surprise, business at his two Cornish hotels was up by nearly 50%. Of Richardson's four hotels, the pair far outstripped business at his Beech hotel in the Lake District, which lost £100,000 in turnover, and the newly acquired Grand in Torquay. But then Cornwall - unlike Devon and Cumbria - had only three recorded outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and, as Richardson says, "Most people hit Devon and kept driving."

Neither was Cornwall affected by the slowdown in the US economy, or the strong pound. Nor will it be alarmed by the prospect other tourist spots face of fewer foreign visitors following the terrorist attacks in the USA two weeks ago. That's because, in an ironic twist, the county's poor and expensive air, rail and road connections mean it traditionally relies on domestic visitors anyway.

On that score, the Eden Project, which opened in March near St Austell, put a timely spotlight on the area. The number of people who have paid £9.50 to see exotic plants housed in two biomes has forced the first year's target of 750,000 visitors to be revised up to 1.2 million (see below). And, needless to say, hoteliers have been benefiting.

Even so, business didn't look promising until the summer season got under way, because lead-in booking times were shorter. Yvonne Scott, general manager of Richardson's Idle Rocks hotel in St Mawes, says at first it looked as if summer business would be 25% down on budget. In March, occupancy in the 27-bedroom hotel stood at just 52%, compared with 67% the previous year. By June, however, occupancy had soared to 96%, compared with the previous year's 69%, pushing takings up by £17,287 to £46,364.

At sister premises the 32-bedroom Fowey hotel, July occupancy rose 20 percentage points on 2000 to 90%, at an average achieved rate of £61 off rack rates of £52-£89 with no discounting. Andrea Callis, general manager at the hotel, says they headed off a downturn by increasing marketing spend by £5,000, hitting the guest database and offering incentives such as free Eden Project tickets.

The story was the same throughout north Cornwall. For chef Rick Stein's wife, Jill, it was business as usual. She opened the £1m St Edmunds House guesthouse in Padstow in May, adding six rooms to the 36 she already operates in three guesthouses in the tiny port. While acknowledging it was a big investment, she already has evidence it will pay off. St Edmunds saw occupancy rates of 100% and room rates of £172 this summer.

And Timothy Marler, owner of the £1.8m 19-bedroom St Enodoc hotel in Rock, reckons turnover will be up 6% on last year, at £627,000, despite the fact that in February and March the forecast looked grim, with sales down by 16-21%. Keeping a level head, however, Marler will only raise the 2002 room rates by 6-8% from this year's £55-£210.

Self-fulfilling prophecy It's a boon that is giving Cornish hoteliers the chance to address more long-term problems. One of the region's main drawbacks is the fact that, while some 24% of Cornwall's GDP is in tourism, it is only really "live" for six months of the year. This is because most tourism businesses target the family market and close between November and February in the belief that there's a lack of demand. It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, exacerbating existing difficulties such as recruiting and retaining skilled staff, and leaving the road, rail and air infrastructure largely ignored.

Two staunch pioneers of keeping Cornwall open for business year-round are brothers Henry and Will Ashworth, who operate respectively the Extreme Acadamy kite-surfing school and the 65-bedroom Watergate Bay hotel at Watergate Bay near Newquay. To generate business, the brothers are targeting new markets.

"Beaches and space are why people come to Cornwall," says Henry. "The problem is the weather. We could put broken glass on the road in the summer and people would still come, but when the kids go back to school and winter comes on, what then? If tourism is built around school-age kids, you are asking for problems. We need to spread it out."

Henry's Extreme Acadamy, which offers year-round adventure beach sports such as kite-buggying and kite-surfing, is therefore focused on the corporate and young professionals markets. Inspired by ski resorts, Henry uses winter and wind as selling points to attract 25- to 40-year-olds who like to be outdoors in the day and to party in the evening. With the latter in mind, he turned a bucket-and-spade shop into a relaxed 50-seat restaurant-bar, the Beach Hut, which saw 450 covers a day this summer. Already, it's putting Watergate Bay on the map - the international Extreme Kite Surfing Festival was held there this month.

Will is now ready to take the plunge. Fired up by occupancy rates of 95% this summer as well as wanting to play a part in beating Cornwall's seasonal image, he's keeping the hotel open between the end of November and February for the first time in the 33 years his parents have owned it. Although May, October and November rarely see occupancy above 50%, he will not drop winter prices below £40 a night for dinner, bed and breakfast, from the summer's £65.

It's a move that is forcing Will, who has been running the hotel for nine months, to look beyond his bread-and-butter family market to banqueting and conference business. To this end, he has secured a wedding licence for the hotel and is courting South-west-based companies such as Coca-Cola for team-building weekends. Other plans include creating a spa and building a further 12 bedrooms based on the standard in four-star US resorts. "If you satisfy them, you satisfy everyone," he muses.

Not that either brother harbours any hope of attracting many Americans - or even other Europeans. "This is ideal for the Scandinavian or German market, but they don't come here, because they can't get here," says Henry.

It's a fair point. During the summer season the roads into Cornwall are choked, and a four-hour journey from London can easily double. Summer or winter, there are few direct trains to the county from the capital - getting to Newquay can take a minimum of six hours, while plane connections from London cost more than £200.

Staying open all year will be beneficial in other ways, however. One problem is that the Watergate Bay hotel employs between 200 and 250 staff in the summer, a number that is cut to 10 when it's closed. As Henry points out: "If it was a major company about to make 200 people unemployed, it would be on national news."

It's a problem that bodies such as the Cornwall Tourist Board are now tackling, and as Cornwall has been awarded Objective One status, a fraction of the £300m EU grant is aimed at encouraging businesses to stay open all winter. Will, for instance, has been awarded 40% of the wages for seven staff in return for employing and training them year-round.

"If you stay open all year you get better service and better guests, and it saves us saying goodbye to staff," says Will. "It also means you hit the ground running at Easter without any headaches."

Marler, at St Enodoc hotel, sees the logic of this but, being more cautious, he wants to experiment by opening over the New Year period only.

His trepidation is understandable. He experienced a culture shock when he moved from London in 1998, where he still owns the Knightsbridge Green hotel with his sister: "If it's quiet in London it's 65% occupancy, but here it's 0%," he explains.

Hoteliers who are worried about opening, though, should take heart. Richardson has always kept his Idle Rocks and Fowey hotels trading through winter. He does, however, take investment seriously. The marketing budget for the Fowey hotel is £50,000, and the total cost of raising the quality of the hotel including refurbishment work came to about £750,000. This has paid off, seeing income triple over six years to next year's budgeted £1.2m. Callis adds that in September and October empty-nesters keep occupancy at 77-92% and February often reaches nearly 60%, which is comparable to May. Weekends also look after themselves. "Winter is only three months of the year," she says.

Tourism in Cornwall

www.cornwalltouristboard.co.uk

Known hotels: 341
Known hotel bedrooms: 18,001
Known beds in serviced accommodation generally: 31,763

Objective One status was granted last year - bringing a £300m EU grant, of which part is going to tourism

One of Cornwall's largest industries, tourism:

  • accounts for 24% of the county's GDP (compared with 10% of GDP in the South-west as a whole);
  • employs 15% of the workforce (42,500 jobs);
  • attracts more than four million visitors;
  • generates more than £900m expenditure a year;
  • earns an income that roughly equates to £1,942 per Cornwall resident.

Improving tourism

At the time of the Blair family's hurried - some might say patronising - visit to Cornwall this summer between glamorous foreign holidays, the press got tough. The Daily Telegraph‘s William Langley reported scathingly: "Apart from the occasional necessity to eat, drink and sleep, you can still have a good time in Cornwall."

Such comments stung a community already bridling at new tourism minister Kim Howells's complaint about the industry's poor standards, a criticism that was met with knee-jerk indignation by many in the hospitality industry. Yet some in Cornwall are brave enough to see this criticism as an opportunity to draw attention to the need to improve the offerings to visitors in the county.

Among those willing to speak out is Henry Ashworth, who runs the Extreme Acadamy in Watergate Bay. He points out that although nearby Newquay has 40% of Cornwall's bedstock, much of it is ungraded. The perception discerning holiday-makers and foreigners have, therefore, is of low-quality accommodation. He believes it's imperative that service standards are raised, at whatever grade.

"We rely on tourism more down here," says Ashworth. "People shouldn't play at hotelkeeping, because it mucks up the economy."

In Padstow, where chef Rick Stein operates three restaurants including the famous Seafood restaurant, wife, Jill, bemoans the fact that many hoteliers are not very imaginative and says there is room for more quality establishments. She runs four guesthouses and names Timothy Marler at the St Enodoc hotel in Rock and, further south, Olga Polizzi at the Tresanton hotel as being among only a handful of innovative hoteliers.

Marler agrees. He opened at the same time as Tresanton and Fowey Hall. "The three of us got good press coverage, and things feed off themselves. There is a mass of ordinary hotels in Cornwall. It's saturated. To make headway we had to be different, but [at £1.8m] it has been expensive."

Certainly, the battle to improve Cornwall's image is under way, but development has to be sensitive. While many hoteliers are investing, the county's many small independent businesses are struggling to keep pace. There is also a strong feeling that any development should be kept to brownfield sites or renovations. As Marler says: "There's plenty of room for more entrepreneurs as long as the countryside is left untouched. It would destroy tourism if the fields were carpeted like Surrey. There would be no reason to come to Cornwall."

On a more sober note, there's also the possibility that money alone will not improve Cornwall's lot. Andrea Callis, general manager at the Fowey hotel, points out that many operators are missing opportunities. Citing the Fowey Regatta in August, she says Fowey was packed, but many pubs and restaurants ignored the captive market and closed. "They cut off their noses… and that attitude has to change," she stresses.

The Eden Project - a winter warmer?

The weather is one major drawback to an outdoor destination such as Cornwall, but many hoteliers who have committed to opening this winter are putting their faith in the drawing power of the Eden Project's all-weather biomes. Most are using the attraction as a short-break marketing tool.

Operations director George Elworthy is also confident. The £86m attraction, which opened in March at the start of the foot-and-mouth crisis, couldn't cope with demand even after the school holidays had ended. Elworthy is expecting to see 450,000 more visitors this year than the 750,000 predicted and insists it isn't a one-minute wonder. Some 60% of tourists surveyed said that the attraction was their primary reason for visiting Cornwall, and part of Elworthy's confidence is based on the fact that there's a rich seam of visitors untapped as yet - those from abroad.

"We won't exceed the Millennium Dome in terms of visitor numbers this year, but we will in terms of longevity," says Elworthy.

In the light of this, hoteliers are looking forward to the proposed opening next summer of the Falmouth Maritime Museum. However, Henry Ashworth at the Extreme Acadamy in Watergate Bay warns that marketing opportunities of all-weather attractions such as the Eden Project and the Tate at St Ives are being missed. "Cornwall has to look at its key offerings, and everyone has to say what they can do - together."

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