Weds 11th December 2024
WBG member David Kemp (owner of The Little Silver Country Hotel) took his turn to present to the WBG breakfast this week, and the theme was the changing landscape of the hospitality sector. As David explained, hospitality is all about offering memorable experiences and providing customer satisfaction. But recent events affecting the UK and the wider world have made achieving those goals particularly challenging.
David purchased the hotel towards the end of 2019, expecting to have a typically quiet Christmas & New Year before ramping up for the busy summer months. Unfortunately Covid spread around the world through the winter of 19/20, leading to the imposition of a total lockdown on Friday 20th March 2020, just as the Little Silver was preparing for a wedding party the following day. The result was that the wedding party and all guests were reimbursed, and the full fridges, freezers and drinks cellar suddenly had no means of being utilised.
This began 18 months of severe challenges for David at the hotel, coping with ever-changing rules regarding social distancing, a government financial support setup that seemed to exclude them from all help, and a reluctance for the general public to travel and stay anywhere other than their home.
Added to the mix, just before covid restrictions began, was the exit of the UK from the EU. This event almost immediately caused a significant reduction in the numbers of hospitality staff available to hire, given that many were EU citizens who no longer had the automatic right to live and work in the UK.
However, despite such unique challenges, the Little Silver endures, finding creative solutions to each new problem and still offering the memorable experiences and customer satisfaction that all hospitality businesses strive to achieve.
