County cost
In March, the view from the dining room of the Old Passage Inn was dominated by smoke from burning pyres. The land around Arlingham in Gloucestershire, where the 60-seat restaurant is situated, was devastated by the foot-and-mouth crisis. Seventeen cases of the disease were diagnosed within a two-mile radius.
"Our business dropped by half overnight," says owner Somerset Moore. "In February we had served 300 meals and turned over £5,500, but in March the figures dropped to 150 covers and a turnover of £2,250."
Although devastated by the loss of business, Moore - who opened the Old Passage only a year ago - completely understands why people stayed away. "We are down a long, lonely lane and customers have to pass numerous farms to get to us. People stopped coming because they wanted to be good to the farmers."
Four months on, business has picked up and is back to what was being achieved in February. Moore is now confident that the seven bedrooms that he is in the process of opening at the Old Passage will help to attract people back to the area.
Yet Gloucestershire is in need of a major confidence boost, having been the fifth-worst county in the country affected by foot-and-mouth. So far, 76 cases have been reported and parts of the county are still closed to visitors - most notably the Forest of Dean in the West, which is usually a huge attraction to outdoor activity enthusiasts at this time of year. All 3,000 sheep, previously allowed to roam freely throughout the forest, were culled. It is hoped, though, that most footpaths here will be open by the end of this month. The Cotswolds, more than two-thirds of which are in Gloucestershire, are fully open, as is 98% of the Cotswold Way.
From the outset of the crisis, hotels, restaurants and pubs in Gloucestershire have lost millions of pounds' worth of business. Initially, the biggest blow was the cancellation of the Cheltenham Festival, which had been due to take place on 13-15 March. The three-day national hunt event usually provides a wonderful kick-start to the spring and summer season. But the abandonment of this year's event, which had sold 150,000 tickets, resulted in a loss of £40m to local businesses. "Normally, you can't find a spare room anywhere in the county during the middle of March," says Christopher Dee, head of tourism for Gloucestershire. "But this year we were empty."
Turnover for the 150-seat Daffodil restaurant in Cheltenham, where average spend is £28 per head, usually doubles during festival week. This year, the restaurant lost both the festival business and a lot of local custom. "A cloud lingered over the town for some time and no one wanted to go out," says owner Marcel Frichot. "Staff morale was also low."
To help perk up business and boost the spirits of staff and customers alike, Frichot organised a number of theme evenings, including a gangsters and molls event for Comic Relief. Business is now back to the same levels as this time last year.
However, the Bacchanalian restaurant within the 12-bedroom Hotel on the Park, also in Cheltenham, has yet to recover all of its lost business. As well as losing the festival customers - 160 lunches and dinners were lost - the 40-seat restaurant is still suffering from the drop in the number of American travellers coming to the UK (because of both foot-and-mouth and the downturn in the US economy). Between April and October, around 25% of guests at the hotel are usually American. Weekend business from within the UK also collapsed during the height of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, although this is now back up to 80% of its normal level.
The loss of the Cheltenham Festival reverberated throughout the county. The 21-bedroom Tudor Farmhouse hotel in Clearwell, which is a 40-minute drive from the racecourse, lost £10,000-worth of business from a party of Irish guests who had been booked to stay for five days. "They come every year, so we didn't levy any cancellation charges," says owner Colin Gray.
Situated on the edge of the Forest of Dean, the Tudor Farmhouse hotel, which has a 30-seat restaurant, is continuing to suffer from the dramatic loss of leisure business to the area. "Our business is usually split 50:50 between leisure and business customers, but the leisure side has totally died," says Gray. "While the forest is still closed, people are very limited in what they can come here and do."
Amazingly, some pockets of Gloucestershire seem to have escaped the devastating effects wrought by foot-and-mouth on business across the majority of the county. The Three Choirs Vineyards restaurant in Newent is a 50-seat venue with eight bedrooms, situated in the midst of a 100-acre vineyard. Only one visit has been cancelled because of foot-and-mouth.
Something that all businesses have had to cope with has been the general increase in the cost of food supplies. Big rises have been experienced throughout the county on both meat and fish prices, while some chefs also report some increase in the cost of fruit and vegetables. Lamb, in particular, has become an increasingly expensive commodity, as new spring lamb has become scarce due to the massive slaughter policy. "You can pay up to 100% more for lamb now," says John Campbell, head chef of the 27-bedroom Lords of the Manor hotel in Upper Slaughter. "Across the board, though, we've probably seen price hikes of 10%."
Campbell is not passing the price increase on to his customers at the hotel's 55-seat restaurant. "They are already in a scared market. It's no good giving them something else which might frighten them away."
At the Tudor Farmhouse hotel, chef Dean Wassell is now paying £13.30 per kg for beef fillet, although at its peak it rose to £14.95, while before the crisis he was paying about £12.
Although none of the chefs or proprietors Caterer spoke to reported any shift in eating patterns away from meat, the fish industry appears to have capitalised on the bad press suffered by meat during the crisis by increasing prices. The Old Passage, which specialises in fish and seafood, reports a 10% increase in the cost of fish.
With a bountiful selection of specialist meat suppliers in Gloucestershire, it is not surprising that the chefs featured here have full confidence in the meat they are buying. "I go to great lengths to seek out quality produce," says Alan Thompson, chef-proprietor of the Royalist restaurant with rooms and the adjacent Eagle & Child pub in Stow-on-the-Wold.
"I buy items such as Shorthorn beef and Gloucester Old Spot pork, which my butcher buys directly from organic farms, and we can even find out exactly which field the animal was raised on. We list the breed of meat on our menu, which gives the customers every confidence that they are buying a quality product."
Helping to restore confidence
In an effort to rebuild confidence in Gloucestershire as a tourist destination, £100,000 (made up of £75,000 provided by the South West Regional Development Agency [SWRDA] and £25,000 from the county and district councils) is being spent on marketing the county. Key initiatives include:
The employment of a public relations company to help place articles in the national press.
Links with South West Tourism in order to tap into their autumn and spring promotional campaigns.
Increased liaison with cycling and other specialist tour operators.
Visits to key British Tourist Authority offices in New York, Brussels and Tokyo.
"We'll also be visiting Ireland in conjunction with Cheltenham racecourse to launch a charm offensive as we can't take it for granted that the Irish are going to come back," says Christopher Dee, head of tourism for Gloucestershire.
On behalf of the most severely affected part of the county - with 45 of the 76 cases of foot-and-mouth - the Forest of Dean District Council is endorsing a localised marketing campaign with its own £100,000 grant from SWRDA. While most of the money is being allocated for public relations work, some of it will go towards organising special attractions. These include a Forest of Dean illumination scheme for the autumn and a food festival, called Forest Showcase at the Speech House hotel in the heart of the Forest of Dean on 28 October.
Direct help is also available for hotels and restaurants which have suffered severe financial losses. Applications can be made for non-repayable grants of up to £15,000 by businesses that have fewer than 50 full-time employees, have been in profit in the past, and whose turnover has dropped 40% over a three-month period or 30% over a four-month period. The money has been granted by SWRDA and is being allocated by Business Link Gloucestershire. Further details from the Foot-and-Mouth Recovery Team, tel: 01242 864150.
Gloucestershire at a glance…
Total value of tourism to Gloucestershire: £499.6m (1999), an increase of £48m over 1998
Total number of bedroom nights sold: 3.7 million (1999), an increase of 122,000 over 1998
Total amount spent on accommodation: £194m (1999 - 65% guests from UK and 35% from overseas) compared with £164m in 1998
Most important foreign markets (in descending size of importance): USA, Germany, Japan, Belgium
Employment: Tourism was the fourth major employer in the county during 1999, with an estimated direct workforce of 18,612. One in 10 of all jobs are sustained by tourism.
Web site:www.glos-cotswolds.com
Next week the series visits North Wales.
