Park life

There's a lot of potential for hoteliers who choose to take up the opportunities offered by locating in business parks rather than town centres, as Cheryl Freedman found out

A hotel in the midst of a clump of offices is not the average guest's idea of heaven. For most business travellers, of course, it is another matter. As for the view - a car park, a motorway junction, a concrete office block - it makes no odds to them. Out-of-town business parks have thus become increasingly common locations for hotels.

Of course, business parks are frequently well landscaped or set in pleasant countryside. Developers such as Arlington, which runs more than a dozen UK business parks, many of them landscaped, have even forged links with certain hotel brands. For example, Shire Inns is present on three of its parks at Kettering, Fareham in Hampshire, and Bristol. It also has a Whitbread Travel Inn at Oxford and a Forte hotel at Bracknell, and it is seeking to site a hotel at its Coventry park.

There are a number of reasons why the marriage can work. A lot comes down to the simple matter of good location and critical mass. Business parks are often found at highly accessible motorway junctions - the kind of places hoteliers might consider anyway - and they often already have their own infrastructure in place.

William Grosvenor, head of Arlington, explains: "Almost by definition, a location deemed to be suitable for a business park will be appropriate for a hotel. The criteria relating to infrastructure and access have much in common."

Office parks are a natural stopover for the so-called business tourist. And business tourism is booming - in 1995, some 14.8 million UK trips were made for business purposes, generating 36.7 million overnight stays and a spend of £1.98b.

There is little doubt that office park occupiers themselves supply a ready stream of guests. On-site hotels are a convenient place to put up associates visiting from other countries, avoiding the need for long travel times to meetings.

The benefits work both ways. Developers traditionally slot in business park amenities to help attract potential occupiers and satisfy existing ones. Hotels can serve the surrounding office community in many ways. They offer, for instance, conference facilities and meeting rooms during the day, and leisure add-ons such as fitness clubs, restaurants and bars, which help generate after-hours revenue from nearby workers.

Jacques Van Tilberg, first general manager of the Shire Inns hotel at Arlington's Aztec West park in Bristol, sums up the philosophy: "We see ourselves as an integral part of the business park concept - a total business community complete with all the amenities necessary to commercial life in the 1990s. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, to the advantage of occupiers and visitors alike."

However, there could be disadvantages for operators. Business parks are not particularly glamorous locations, and are often a long way from city centres, so lack of amenities for guests after dark may be off-putting. On the other hand, business park developers may be deterred if they believe they can generate higher returns by using sites for more offices instead.

Final Touches

Stakis is one operator that has not been discouraged. It is now putting the final touches to a £12.3m four-star hotel and leisure complex at Strathclyde Business Park, outside Glasgow, and will purchase the freehold, once the building is complete, from joint developers HF Development, the Lanarkshire Development Agency and Morrison Developments.

Attractions include three 220-seat conference rooms, four meeting rooms and a 25,000sq ft LivingWell health club with swimming pool, sauna and spa.

Strathclyde is not Stakis's first such venture. It already has an enterprise at Bristol Business Park. Anthony Harris, managing director of Stakis, says: "We like business parks in general. Strathclyde is progressive; it's got some good names, there is major investment in a good road network, and there is a lot of growth in that part of the country."

He cites the massive inward investment in the region of picture tube manufacturer Chungwa as a major pull. Another advantage is the fact that the hotel is visible from the M74-M8 link road. But Harris says Stakis researches any location using the same criteria: examining the local environment, the residential catchment areas, and ease of access.

Not every business park developer seeking a hotel finds it easy to secure the right hotel name. Akeler Developments is behind the Doxford International Business Park, in Sunderland, which boasts high-profile occupiers such as Nike and the Northern Rock Building Society. The park forms part of an enterprise zone and is eight minutes from the A1(M).

Discussions are now taking place to develop a hotel on the last parcel of development land. However, Mark Glatman, chief executive of Akeler, reports that few potential operators have come forward, despite the fact that "the site is very well positioned" and "the area is dreadfully under-hoteled."

Although he is talking to a couple of operators, he says bluntly: "I don't feel confident we will get someone. The dilemma we now face is whether we fill the site with offices instead. Hotel operators will miss the opportunity."

Glatman says they are seeking a three-star-plus operation of about 100 rooms, or "possibly something with a bit of attitude, but not really a travel inn". He highlights several advantages for a hotel: "We will have at least 5,000 people working there by the middle of next year. That's a hell of a lot of people, and huge demand. Many big companies will commit to a certain number of rooms per year."

No Delays

The park is close to Newcastle and Durham, which generate a lot of conference demand. Meanwhile, the fact that Doxford forms part of an enterprise zone means there are "no planning delays. We could turn it around in 10 or 11 months from today," claims Glatman.

But, at the end of the day, Angela Warr-King of leisure property specialist Grant & Partners, which acts for names including Forte, believes that the business park environment is almost irrelevant to operators. "People want to be near motorways," she says. "I don't think it matters if it's a business park or a leisure park - it's the location that's important."

Now, with planning guidelines PPG6 and 13 pushing developments of all kinds back towards town centres, there may be fewer business parks on the horizon anyway. In the future, it seems likely that hotel operators will be focusing on the pick of existing parks or on those sites with planning consents already in place.