leisure Archives - RPA Group

Why hoteliers should be refurbishing during a pandemic

This is when operators who have planned for a refurbishment scheme have the upper hand. One of the key factors when undertaking works is to avoid disturbance to guests. With many hotels now at low or zero occupancy, disruption is at a minimum and works can happen more quickly and efficiently.

The government is currently assisting the hospitality industry by helping with staff costs, and this support offers an added reason why hoteliers should be using this time to carry out refurbishments, if they can afford to – it’s as simple as that.

Having a strong procurement plan and committing to a programme with realistic deliverables and timescales is essential. This is where it is prudent to obtain the support of an experienced Project Management and Cost Management team. After all, there is no point in undertaking a rejuvenation scheme if it becomes sabotaged by spiralling costs and unnecessary delays.

Thinking ahead, what customers will need more than ever is reassurance that the hotel they are checking into is a safe place to stay. Aside from reconfiguring guest flow and ensuring communal spaces adhere to social distancing guidelines, some operators are installing thermal CCTV systems, where cameras can take up 30 people’s temperatures as they walk through the door. Guests are also more likely to spend increased amounts of time in their rooms, where they feel more secure and so these need to offer more than just somewhere to sleep. This could require repurposing areas of bedrooms, for the provision of adequate working facilities. Other increasingly important criteria will include proper entertainment, fast and reliable Wi-Fi and up to date technology.

So, whether hotel operators can embark on large-scale refurbishment schemes, or a series of small but important upgrades, they should be using this time to implement these, ready to entice and reassure future guests when normal travel resumes.

getting ahead in the fitness industry race

You don’t need to read these types of reports to know that the fitness and health club industry is on a continuing growth path and that an exciting future lies ahead, for both budget and premium fitness businesses. Stroll along any high street and you will encounter a shop that has been replaced by a gym. Offering high spec equipment, no hefty membership fees, the convenience of 24 hour accessibility and the ability to join online and on-site, allows people to begin their fitness journey within minutes. The prediction is that the fitness sector will continue to break all barriers as the consumer gets easier access, with more personalisation, localisation and easier sign-up and payment options.

With bricks and mortar retail increasingly under pressure, and store closures in evidence daily across many UK towns, these new gyms also breathe life into struggling high streets. They can absorb vacant shops and help save high street communities that would otherwise face the risk of turning into ghost towns.

Businesses like PureGym are perfectly placed to take over vacant space near transport hubs and on UK high streets, with a model that has helped them become the first operator to reach 200 clubs and impressively pass the one million-member mark in 2018, with no signs of slowing down.Naturally, transforming a previous retail or business space into a suitable fitness hub, requires necessary design management, development management and cost expertise. When combined, these go a long way in supporting business such as PureGym and helping to ensure that their expansion is not compromised by poor time keeping on delivery of roll-outs, or being at risk from poorly managed budgets.

Various factors come into play, where good PM and QS services can prove invaluable in helping deliver an expansion programme. A recent example of this for us has been a change of use from office space into a gym, that required extensive negotiations with the landlord and a structural engineer, to overcome weight-loading issues – vital, when considering that gym equipment is far heavier than office furniture. A solution involving a new floor sub-structure and additional support to the existing structure, ensured that the building was safe and fit for its new purpose.Other factors overseen by a project manager include acoustics and soundproofing and also the strength and suitability of floor surfaces and how these will withstand impact. Then there is planning, signage and being the key negotiator between client and contractor. Because some gyms are open 24 hours, safety is paramount and has a different set of building regulations, such as remote monitored CCTV, panic alarms, help points and the correct implementation of all fire and safety requirements.

Where in many instances internal teams can differ, it is up to the PM and QS to ensure that there is consistency in the delivery of the final product, through efficient communication with contractors. Similarly, because multiple sites are often underway simultaneously, a PM and QS can apply their learnings from one contractor to another, instilling best practice across all.One might argue the need for external support, if the client already has their own in-house PM? To this our answer is simply that the additional support from an external PM and QS, will in fact offer greater savings, through their efficiencies and contract negotiations. You could say that a good QS and PM can save you more than they cost!

The opportunity to develop and to meet the increasing demands of today’s fitness market is vast and whilst competition is strong, there is ample room for change, diversity and progression in years to come. There truly has never been a more inspiring and rewarding time to invest in fitness.

evolving retail: why retail brands are moving from traditional retail spaces

We will see physical shopping undergo a dramatic transformation and in the next few years, it could morph into an activity that is driven almost entirely by experiences and interactive technology. Stores will become places where customers get to try things on, or test and interact with products in person but don’t actually buy anything at the time, opting instead for the convenience of delivery of their purchases at a time and place that suits them. So, if shopping is becoming all about the experience, then for some retailers, there is a need to adapt their stores, in some instances even extending their presence beyond them, in order to deliver a truly immersive and flexible experience to their customers.

Pop-ups have been around for a while now and won’t be going anywhere fast, because how better to offer flexible and immediate engagement with prospective customers? We see pop-ups within larger “host” stores and within shopping malls, but what about within transport hubs, gallery spaces, markets and at events? The beauty of the pop-up is that intrinsically the essence of it is temporary, providing intrigue and a sense of urgency that will entice customers, who by the very nature of being human, do not want to “miss out”. Benefit Cosmetics recently devised a novel way to boost brand experience, by opening the world’s first “Beauty and Brows Popup Shop” close to the Glastonbury festival. The drive-thru format enticed festival-goers stuck in crowds and traffic, to meet beauticians and shop assistants, who provided them with advice and goodie bags.

A step beyond a pop-up, is offering mobile shops, that actually take the brand to customers – something we think we will be seeing more of. An excellent example of this is Casper, a USA mattress firm, who has rolled out “napmobiles”, where potential customers can road-test foam mattresses inside a refurbished camper van, before electing to purchase online. However, retailers don’t all need to be mobile or have a pop-up to offer immersive retail experiences to their customers. As long as they can delight and engage and leave a lasting resonance, then brand loyalty will be formed and retained.

The Museum of Ice Cream is a great example of this. Being neither a museum nor a shop, it sells tickets to a series of garishly coloured installations in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Once inside, the very essence of the joy associated with ice-cream is morphed into an experiential interaction, as visitors find themselves immersed in a theme-park type of experience, with engaging things to do rather than buy – such as a giant pool of sugar sprinkles to jump into, an ice-cream themed climbing wall and a giant banana swing.

In the UK, a pioneering social enterprise called Meanwhile Space has forged a series of ground breaking partnerships with local authorities, public bodies and companies to utilise vacant and unconventional spaces, such as disused office blocks and vacant railway arches, turning them into retail and hospitality spaces. Similar to Box Park, Blue House Yard is one such example, and is a redevelopment and re-imagining of an empty and underused site near Wood Green station, that today offers the local community a bustling mix of retail, hospitality and social spaces, creating local interest and breathing new life into a dying area.

The House of Vans in London is another thriving location and one where art, music, BMX, street culture and fashion converge. The 30,000 square feet building encompasses a cinema, café, live music venue and art gallery, while the bottom floor holds a concrete ramp, mini ramp and street course. Designed by skaters, the park is free to use and customers are encouraged to walk in on the day. What The House of Vans has very cleverly done, is create a space that epitomises its brand identity, by creating a fully interactive and experiential space where young people can shop and socialise.

Whatever the space, retailers need to ensure that they offer quality, as well as originality, creating a point of difference from competitors. In the same way, customers have also come to expect the unexpected, and providing this will help deliver a key point of difference and form an all important lasting impression.

chain reaction takes fast food to a new level

The ‘one look for everywhere’ approach, which traditionally made sense and helped to underscore a brand’s identity has begun to look downmarket rather than consistent, and impersonal rather than recognisable. Consumers expect a more premium experience and the cookie-cutter strategy that dominated the sector is rapidly losing traction. Part of the reason is the artisan ethos pioneered by the smaller players. Brands like Bill’s and Leon – both of which have less than 100 UK sites, tapped into the zeitgeist by borrowing design cues from aspirational domestic interiors and as a result made ambiance the essence of the brand. Fashionable industrial lighting, quality natural materials, quirky buildings, intriguing props and unusual artwork give customers an authentic sense of place.

Big brands are tapping into the trend and are making the expression of their identities far more nuanced. KFC, the epitome of a fast food brand – have also been able to make the strategy work. It’s Bracknell outlet launched a radical new look with brick panels, copper lighting fixtures and handwritten signs. The sense of stylish domestic interior is evident through ‘kitchen tables’ with pendant lighting, which evoke the idea of shared family meals, while the semi-open plan kitchen makes food preparation feel more intimate. The iconic KFC colourways, graphics and visual identity take a back seat and allow the environment to become the brand hero. Burger King has also chosen to move away from full on corporate statement with a new scheme that combines copper, brick, bamboo and reclaimed wood. Branding is subtle with logos embossed into solid wood tabletops. These sorts of environments pick up on the UK consumer’s longstanding love affair with property design and interiors.

We have become less impressed with monolithic faceless corporations and want businesses to demonstrate honesty, authenticity and a more personal service. Branding is now about capturing an ambiance rather than corporate colours and a logo count. The fast food sector is particularly vulnerable to this change in consumer expectation and we can expect to see the trend for more intimate, almost domestic environments to continue in the future.

Nigel Collett – CEO, rpa:group.

How to reach customers not interested in in-store technology

Do we really understand who uses technology and how they want it to operate within a retail environment? Does everybody want their store to have the latest gadgets? Having taken an initial ‘giant leap’ for customer-kind, many stores have become a committed part of the technology vanguard, pioneering in-store solutions that have the ring of science fiction about them: iris recognition, smart changing rooms, near field communications and clothing that can read your moods. They have seen the ultimate promise of ‘big data’ and are working on how to personalise their stores in order to get to know their customers better than anybody had ever dreamed possible.

All this is exciting territory, however, despite the overall trend, it’s inevitable that a significant number of customers will feel disgruntled and even at odds with a brand to which they have previously been loyal. This group will be quite diverse in attitudes: some will not want to fully embrace IT in their own homes and daily lives, let alone want to experience it in-store. Others may actively enjoy technology but be turned off by it in certain situations or environments. Retailers have to think carefully about how to respond to this situation – after all some ‘techno-phobics’ may be their best customers. For a retailer, it’s now all about understanding ‘tribes’ that make up their customer base. Tribes are not brought together by age, gender or geography or even income, but by being like-minded.

We have identified over the past year or so a number of key tribes to assist our clients: the ‘style-conscious tribe’, the ‘value tribe’, the ‘urban chic’, the ‘collaborators’, the ‘iconoclasts’ and many others. Within any tribe there will be sub-tribes and there will also be members of the tribe that cross over between their tribe and another. For example, research has revealed that 63% of shoppers welcome a mobile app personalised to navigate stores and 43% find in-store location deals (where their location is tracked in order to trigger personalised promotions whilst shopping) positively “cool”. Some are delighted to have intelligent fitting rooms that ‘talk’ to them but would be horrified by the prospect of a salesperson greeting them by name when entering a store, after receiving a signal from the consumer’s mobile phone.
In fact, an overwhelming 73% found the thought of that service ‘creepy’ when asked. In addition, 68% of UK shoppers find facial recognition unnerving.

In the light of findings retailers need to identify the tribes in their customer base and create the ultimate retail environment for them, based on an understanding of their motivations, IT habits and general psychology. That is just as important as being up to speed with the latest techno inventions.

restaurants: high street newbies get a slice of the action

Established chains like Pizza Express, Mr Pretzels, Hummingbird Bakery and Starbucks are doing well, but there’s no doubt that restaurants still need to find exactly the right interior design recipe in order to succeed. More than ever diners are looking for added benefit, both in the food they eat and in the restaurant environment itself and it’s only those that can tap into the zeitgeist when it comes to their look that will survive the choppy waters of an uncertain economy. Two of the most interesting eateries that we have come across recently are MASH and Moment.

MASH, or the Modern American Steak House, may just be one of those right time right place offerings. The hugely successful Copenhagen Concepts, plumped for Soho as its first foray outside of Denmark and looks like its got a hit on its hands. However, restauranteur Peter Trauboth comments that the brand is going to take it’s time considering whether to stick or twist when it comes to a UK roll out, “it’s one thing to play like a world champion at home but it’s another to go to Wembley,” he says modestly. However, at the moment with rave reviews, things are looking good and the 300 seat restaurant that brings style to steak, is a far cry from your local Angus. But, having said that, a big hit calls for broad appeal, and MASH’s interior design has set out to appeal to women, an American inspired trend that is happening throughout the steak world at the moment.

Can we support the growing numbers of steak restaurants? It would appear that MASH is not life threatening to London’s other high end steakeries although its kind could just sound the death knell for the few remaining Angus Steak Houses. Also, on the wave of a new look is Greggs which has launched ‘Moment’, a Newcastle coffee bar concept that leaves the doughnut and the almond slice far behind. More restaurant than corner cafe it sports chesterfield sofas, discreet lighting, and elegant
coffee tables. It deserves to catch on, but I cannot think why they have retained the Greggs identity on the fascia.

All of this is a far cry from the bakery I knew and loved as a 6th former and, as I pause through my first bite of a perfectly frosted cupcake, I wonder if I’ve fallen into a parallel universe. It’s only the picture of Greggs fascia board, uploaded by a puzzled Geordie onto the brand’s Facebook page and succinctly captioned: “Explain?”, that brings me crashing back to earth. With its low cost food and high comfort surroundings, Moment is right for an age of austerity where people are looking for alternatives to expensive high street coffee shops. But does it have the magic that’s needed to hack it on the high street? Some soul searching is obviously going on as Tony Rowson, formerly a senior executive at Costa Coffee, has been asked to look at the brand’s potential for a UK roll-out. So, we shall see.

olympic torch lights up the economy…

After playing our own small part in the mega event of London 2012, RPA is settling down, like so many others, to evaluate the legacy of the Games for Britain.

The euphoric wave of medal winning, creativity and showmanship delivered by The Summer of Sport gave us something more fundamental and longer lasting than a few weeks of top class entertainment. It gave us back something of the confidence and self-belief that had been slowly ebbing away over the past few years of recession. And, perhaps more importantly, it gave us an excellent opportunity to rebuild ourselves, not just at home but abroad. Now British business needs to work hard to take advantage of our new found confidence and build upon it. We need more initiatives like the ‘British Business Embassy’ run at Lancaster House alongside the Olympics. The “embassy” arranged for 4,000 business leaders to attend the biggest trade event ever held in the UK, and helped to generate £1bn of the £11bn of trade and inward investment so far expected as a result of the Games.

As we officially leave recession behind us the economic benefits of the Games have started to kick in. Now, something needs to underpin what we have achieved so far and it’s the perfect time for British brands to embrace being British, associating their products and services with the fundamental values of heritage, passion and style that were illustrated so well in Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony. Maybe it’s time that we revisited the advertising campaign, created by Mother for the British Government in 2011? The campaign, centered around the word ‘Great’ was intended to send out the message loud and proud that this is a great place to do business. Then, against a backdrop of rioting hoodies, it didn’t strike the right note, but now it would be a perfect fit. If there was ever a time and a place to put the ‘Great’ back into Britain it is here and now.

The feel good factor should also help lift the mood on Britain’s High Streets, as the success of the Games is predicted to bring more visitors to the UK in coming months and years. Stores should be planning to take a leaf out of Danny Boyle’s book. After all, he showed the world how impactful ‘theatre’ can be, and that theatre can be translated into the retail environment. It’s important to remember that we are not just feeling different about ourselves we are also being viewed differently overseas. Feedback from colleagues and clients across the globe all boils down to buzz words like quality, innovation and success. There is a universal feeling that Britain can punch above its weight and still has what it takes. Once again global investors are prepared to listen and willing to invest in BrandGB, and that is a legacy worth having.

an “olympic year” for the hotel industry

However, Michael Saunders, of Citigroup, has examined the data from ten Olympics held between 1964 and 2008. He finds that growth tends to rise in the run-up to the tournament, but the effect starts to fall away even before the games begin. Then afterwards, growth tends to be weaker.

Visa Europe’s report concedes: “This is a first for an Olympic Games host market, which usually experience a domestic spending slump during the Games. This will be driven by the public’s enthusiasm for the Games, demonstrated by the high demand for Olympic tickets.” Who is right? We shall see. It is perhaps ironic that a year that brings the largest sporting event that the UK has ever seen may also herald a break up of the Euro. The hotel industry is, of course, international by its nature. If a Eurozone break up was to occur it has been estimated that we could see national currencies devaluing by up to 40%, impacting profits derived from Euro transactions. Fingers crossed…To add to the litany of others, there is the potential threat of the “staycation”, where people choose to spend their vacation time at or near home in order to save money.

However, “holidaying at home” has boosted UK demand, with Butlins and Haven holiday parks seeing a 6% rise in pre-tax profits to £93.4 million in the year to December 2010, thanks to Britain’s ‘staycation’ trend as the weak pound makes it relatively expensive to go overseas. So actually, perhaps that is a good thing. Whatever your take on prospects for the future, it is a fact that the UK leads the way in hotel property sales and investment. In 2010 it topped Europe in terms of hotel transactions, with a figure of €1.9 billion.

In recent years, private equity firms have made big profits through aggressive acquisition strategies. However, they no longer have the influence they perhaps once did at a time when funds are hard to borrow and valuations declining. Some funding is moving back towards traditional models, such as the Feathers Hotel Group, one of the fastest growing hotel chains in the North West of England. They announced in October 2011 that they are to invest further money into their portfolio of three
and four-star hotels with the continued financial support of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Corporate and Institutional Banking (RBS CIB) team.

Other funding models, increasingly popular with the value hotel chains, are a little more complex. The concept is that a developer, who is often also a contractor, builds the hotel and then leases it to an operator for 25-30 years at a predetermined rent level. The operator never actually owns the hotel. Containing cost is an essential part of making these arrangements work, and so a particular approach is necessary. Planning costs can be minimized by an appreciation of the appetite each planning authority has for such schemes, be they new build or the increasingly popular conversion of 1960’s and 70’s office blocks. An understanding of the necessary occupancy levels and room numbers, together with an operator’s preferred location criteria, footprint and mix of retail and accommodation on a development avoid wasted time and money. Construction utilizing modular techniques may cost a similar amount to that using conventional techniques. However, construction times, even on complex projects, can be substantially truncated – perhaps by as much as 60% – greatly reducing the overall cost of the building. This innovative approach can make otherwise unworkable schemes viable for both developer and operator.

One such value hotel chain, Travelodge, announced in December 2011 that they would target 146 new UK sites for openings in 2012, including 26 new hotels throughout London to be opened ahead of the Games – all within walking distance of the Olympic venues. So clearly the model can be successfully employed. The boutique hotel sector, after undergoing a period of expansion over the past few years, is also proving resilient. Smaller properties commanding higher revenue per room have proved attractive to operators grappling with the economic downturn. Research suggests it is the fastest growing hotel segment in London and is expected to have doubled in size by 2013. In conclusion, it has been said that if you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end… they still could not reach a conclusion!

Despite uncertainty in the market, smart hotel operators are continuing to invest; to take advantage of the many opportunities that come their way, and to build their businesses. Now is the right time for all operators to identify what opportunities are available to take advantage of, whether through acquisition or redevelopment. Every operator should be looking for a positive advantage, not just preparing for the worst, which may never happen.