Members consider options over 1994 GuestAccom guide

MEMBERS of GuestAccom, the marketing consortium for small hotels and guesthouses, are considering whether to continue their membership or move over to rival organisations after the 1994 guidebook was published last week - five months late.

About 600 hoteliers paid a total of more than £100,000 to a company called Ambleshire, which was to publish 500,000 copies of the GuestAccom and Country Homes 1994 guide at the beginning of the year.

As Caterer went to press, hoteliers had received only one complimentary copy of the guide each but have been assured more supplies will arrive shortly.

Ambleshire went into creditors voluntary liquidation on 20 April shortly after selling on the guide to a newly set up company called GuestAccom Limited. The directors are listed as Stanley Johnson of Checkendon, Berkshire, and Audrey Mackenzie, also a director of Ambleshire.

Although the guide has now appeared, many members could be tempted to join new alternative guides, sparked off by doubts over GuestAccom's future.

David Hindley, a GuestAccom member from Cambridge, said: "I am very disinclined to continue with GuestAccom. The greatest problem is a matter of trust - I don't know much about the new owner."

Among those planning alternative publications is Roger Russell, a former manager at GuestAccom. He is planning a free, 120-hotel publication called The Better Accommodation Guide, to be printed in July.

John Anstis, a close associate of one of the consortium's members, has formed a GuestAccom steering committee. He has written to members asking them to resign from GuestAccom and try to get last year's subscription back.