Member Testimonial – Choice Hotels

Why joining the Fylde Coast Responsible Business Network is good for:

• Your Business
• Your People
• Our Community

“Throughout my working life I have never needed to network – now I seriously see the value in it  at all levels.

It was Covid that forced me to get out there and network. Before that I didn’t feel I needed to. We just concentrated on ourselves and our own business.

But having done it, been there, seen and experienced all the benefits, I get it now. I am a convert.

Post Covid

We are a family business with five hotels, three in Blackpool – The Cliffs, The Claremont and The Viking – and two in the Lakes – Keswick Country House Hotel and Patterdale Hotel. We have 500 bedrooms and employ 400 people. When Covid hit and everyone went into lockdown you can imagine what effect that had on our business – it was the same for so many hospitality businesses in Blackpool.

So really it was Covid which forced us to engage with the council for financial reasons because of the situation facing the hospitality industry at that time.

From reaching out we learned what an amazing job Blackpool Council do with the resources they are given by central government. They are passionate about making a positive difference to the area. They do a great job of marketing Blackpool as a destination – and they really believe in tourism.

Through that Covid time we came to realise that Choice Hotels could do so much more to benefit the community through our social responsibility.

Supporting Young People

By joining the Fylde Coast Responsible Business Network we were able to network with the right people to help make that happen.

What I really like about the network is we can have lots of ideas of what we would like to do – and they support us so we can achieve it, and so the community gets maximum benefit.

Through those different networks and through the different council agencies – we have managed to take 72 school age children on work placements in a 12-month period.

It’s not just the young people who get to benefit through experiencing life in the workplace, and finding out what the hospitality industry is all about, our customers love it too. Our own employees also find it rewarding. It’s empowering for them to try to help people.

We have taken on seven apprentices and we are willing to take on more. We have used up our apprenticeship levy but we are committed to carrying on recruiting apprentices because they are so brilliant.

We have also helped 15 care leavers. People might not realise that when young people reach the age when they have to leave care that they lose everything overnight – they lose their home, their foster parents, the whole world they have known.

We give them a six-week course in the hotel where they spend time in different areas of the business. It means they get some meaningful work experience which benefits their career opportunities. They get a certificate to show a future employer that they have turned up on time for work for six weeks and done a good job. It gives them that start on the employment ladder.

Supporting Our Town

Blackpool is on the crest of a wave and progressing 100 per cent which is what we all want to see, and that’s come with all the support from the council and the focus on tourism.

All the new investment in the town to improve the destination perception is much needed and welcomed. My biggest concern from that though is that we don’t try to shrink the traditional tourist area and that we keep hold of the B&Bs as they are part of the heritage of the town.

It’s still a challenging economic environment. Overall our costs have risen 25 per cent since 2019 –  and in the North of England we can’t raise prices like the South of England can.

So we sacrifice profit to keep staff employed, and keep them in regular work, which we think is the responsible way for any business to behave in this situation.

Through all of this the Fylde Coast Responsible Business Network has been a constant help to us. Michelle and the team give you their continual support. They help you get to the root of an issue, help you cut through the red tape and guide you all the way to make good things happen which helps the business and also benefits the wider community.

I would definitely recommend any business in the area joins the Fylde Coast Responsible Network. They are just brilliant – and that’s from someone who never used to network!

Eddie Nelder
Director
Choice Hotels