Hotel Owner April 2019 | Page 3

EDITOR’S LETTER And into Q2 CONTRIBUTORS This month, we hear how hoteliers may be missing STEPHEN W. AYERS out on opportunities right on their doorstep Stephen is a British and Canadian author and former hotel manager. He is the CEO of Stay Ahead Hospitality, a company that helps independent hoteliers in Europe and North America to attain high standards and increase profit - Julia Davies from The Cottage in the Wood Hotel explains why collaboration with the local community can strengthen the positioning of your hotel through strategically affiliating your brand with respected peers. Read her thoughts on how you can boost your audience reach and market DEBORAH HEATHER Deborah is the director of Quality in Tourism; providers of independent quality assessments and gradings. Deborah manages an extensive field force of assessors who grade some 300 properties a year awareness on page 15. As well as relationships we also explore how to properly maintain your property and how an in-house team may be the best way to keep a proactive maintenance regime to keep your hotel on the front foot. Turn to page 20 to find out more. Also in this issue, we take a look at Premier Inn’s new ZIP room offering that fits all the basics of a modern hotel into a compact 8.5 sqm room design - turn to page 13 to see how. On page 32, our regular columnist Deborah Heather talks about security, and how, by JULIA DAVIES Julia is the director of marketing and PR at The Cottage in the Wood, Malvern. A former consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, she left the corporate world in 2015 to take on the ownership of the 30-bedroom property putting together a checklist of all the up-to-date security practices, it can quickly become evident that this is a much-overlooked arena. Some of these solutions may also be found in our tech update section on page 25 where we have collated a number of hospitality technology suppliers for your perusal. I hope you enjoy the issue. ANGIE PETKOVIC Angie started as our resident marketing advice columnist and has now built a substantial following for her straight-talking answers to the common questions about executing a professional marketing strategy | APRIL 2019 £14.99 WWW.HOTELOWNER.CO.UK HOUSEKEEPING | RENOVATION | FOOD & BEVERAGE | SPA | PROPERTY | EDUCATION | TECHNOLOGY hotelowner for the independent hotelier who means business ISSN 2049-7709 BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS Why collaboration with the local community can strengthen the positioning of your hotel HOTEL CONCEPT TECHNOLOGY UPDATE A look at Premiere Inn’s ‘Zip Rooms’ concept, a compact 8.5 sqm room that features all the basics of a modern hotel STEPHEN AYERS p28 Stephen looks at the technological progress of modern hotels April 2019 PROPER MAINTENANCE We look at some of the latest hospitality technology companies and what they have to offer p22 ANGIE PETKOVIC Roomzzz explains the importance of proper hotel maintenance p34 Angie discusses whether DMOs are still worth it for hoteliers ON THE COVER Building Relationships, Page 15. Image courtesy of The Cottage in the Wood Michael Northcott Editor, Hotel Owner [email protected] JULIA DAVIES FROM THE COTTAGE IN THE WOOD HOTEL EXPLAINS WHY COLLABORATION WITH THE LOCAL COMMUNITY CAN STRENGTHEN THE POSITIONING OF YOUR HOTEL THROUGH STRATEGICALLY AFFILIATING YOUR BRAND WITH RESPECTED PEERS ‘‘ www.hotelowner.co.uk 3