CONFERENCE REPORT
Boutique Hotel Summit 21-22 May 2012 – Altitude, London
Report by Matt Turner
The second Boutique Hotel Summit, billed as “Europe’s only B2B conference for the boutique and lifestyle hotels sectors,” took place at Altitude London, on the banks of the Thames in May, attracting more than 220 attendees from as far afield as Beirut, Dubai, Ghana, Sweden, Malta, Italy, France, the US, the Caribbean, Spain and Ireland. A comprehensive seminar agenda featured sessions on marketing, finance, technology, art & design, sustainability, food & beverage, and much more. Networking opportunities included a speed-dating business card swap, cocktail reception and hotel tour. Event organiser Piers Brown
said: “We’ve been delighted with the way Boutique Hotel Summit has grown and developed from last year. Attendance was up by around 50 per cent, we had a terrific list of speakers and the networking sessions really brought people together. A big thank you to all our sponsors, speakers and delegates for making the event possible.” Hotelier Gordon Campbell
Gray opened the summit with a keynote speech in which he addressed the recruitment issues faced by the hotel sector, saying it needed to communicate the glamour and opportunities for travel it offered to make it more attractive to potential employees. He said that boutique hotels could compete with branded ones, even in cities as brand-
conscious as Beirut, where designer clothing and car labels were very popular, with his hotel Le Gray enjoying a higher
RevPAR and occupancy than its branded competitors. Campbell Gray described boutique hotel owners as “a very special breed, we should be very proud.” Tim Smith of HVS, looked at the dynamism of the boutique sector, saying “people are moving away from the corporate box.” He summarised the UK market overall with the pithy comment: “London is a bubble, the rest is a struggle.” But he believed there was still cause to be confident in the boutique sector, pointing to Nigel Chapman’s recent re- acquisition of Luxury Family Hotels from the administrators of von Essen Hotels with backing from Patron Capital. “If someone like Nigel Chapman believes in the sector, bankers and others should.” The expansion of brands such as Motel One – a design-led budget chain, IHG’s Hotel Indigo and Sleeperz, with new properties in Cardiff and Liverpool as further cause for confidence in the sector. Ian Schrager’s reported interest in the Crowne Plaza Shoreditch demonstrated that in the boutique sector, “there is still interest in hotels and people willing to buy.” The second day of the conference gave a rare insight into the creation of two new boutique hotel brands. Angus Thirwell said his Hotel Chocolat brand – well established in the
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retail sector, had never intended to create a hotel, despite the company name. It was onlt when it bought the freehold for a cocoa estate in St. Lucia that it recognised the opportunity to open a resort there. In a fascinating presentation Thirwell described how his business started with “a moment of serendipity” when reading a book on cocoa plantations under a tree in Barbados, prompting him to buy the 1745 estate overlooking a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They had survived hurricanes, disease, pests, political challenges and funding issues to create ‘Boucan’ – an eco-luxury resort and restaurant, named after the Patois for cocoa, with designs inspired by the rainforest canopy. His guests, said Thirwell, were “intelligent, discerning, ecological foodies” to whom he offered a service that was “intuitive, not grasping.” Sary Arab, COO and founding member of Nikki Beach Hotels & Resorts EMEA, described how he had seen the opportunity to extend the successful beach and nightclub brand into hotels when looking for a partner for a hotel project in Marbella. The collaboration in 2004 had since developed into a brand encompassing music, an events company, clothing and a magazine. Next in line is a Nikki Urban Hotel brand bringing hotels, Espa spas and lifestyle residences into major cities. These Boutique Hotel
case studies were followed by a financial case study panel featuring Phil Golding, Partner, Cedar Capital Partners; Josh Wyatt, Investment Director – Hospitality & Leisure, Patron Capital Partners; Paul Dukes, Chairman, Kew Green Hotels and Eric Gummers, Partner, Head of Hotels and Leisure, Howard Kennedy LLP. Wyatt said the boutique hotel market was cyclical: “You have to buy at the right point and if you make a mistake it’s hard to trade out compared to a 250-key full- service hotel.” Pricing generally was not where they would like it to be, although he deals such as its acquisition of Luxury Family Hotels from the administrators of von Essen, and 26 Jarvis properties in the provinces – where the acquisition cost was “about the same as demolition” – were still feasible. Paul Dukes echoed this point saying “timing is everything.” His company had exited the boutique sector which it previously had involvement in through Myhotels, but was looking to invest in London: “The difficulty is finding properties of our bite size”. Phil Golding said one
advantage boutiques had over other hotels was that they could make money from food and beverage, and singled out St. Martins Lane and Sanderson Hotel as “boutiques which would stand the test of time.”
www.boutiquehotelsummit.com
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