ABTN talks dragon boats, dragonflies and biodiversity with the Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars hotel's general manager, Steve Jones.
Four Pillars Hotels has six properties in England, in Witney, The Cotswolds, Oxford, and south Gloucestershire. The newest property is located in the Cotswold Water Park, an up and coming destination of more than 140 lakes spread over 40 sq km.
Can you tell me a bit about the history of Four Pillars?
The group started off with restaurants, just over 30 years ago in Buckinghamshire. It rented the first hotel in London, the Osterley, and then rented a hotel in Abingdon, which we still operate now. We let the Osterley go a couple of years ago.
All was going well and a local builder approached the owner of the company and said: "I'm a builder and I've got a big piece of land in Witney, Oxfordshire, where I'm thinking of building a hotel. Do you fancy coming into partnership with me?"
They did and from then we've built all the hotels. There are six hotels, all new builds over the past 23 years. They're quite varied, from the 60-bed lodge style hotel in Abingdon, to the Cotswold Water Park Four Pillars hotel - 318 bed, four-star property, conference centre, spa and self catering apartments. Worlds apart from where things started. More than 100,000 guests a year stay here with us, and over 50,000 guests walk through the front doors of our on-site pub.
We've managed to see off the last two or three recessions over that period, the main reason for that being that all the hotels have this uniqueness, in that they're in very strong corporate locations, which equally are very very good leisure destinations. Those two businesses seem to have tandemed, in the good growth years you want the corporate and whne the economy is poor, people don't go abroad, they want more leisure in the UK, so UK tourism picks up.
We've been able to keep the business going through all that time by picking one of those two businesses depending on what is happening with the rest of the world.
How has the company performed during this recession?
We've done remarkably well. This was a fairly new hotel when the credit crunch struck. It was just over a year old and some of it had just been finished to be built.
We grew our sales and profit last year in this hotel, which you would expect being a new hotel. Across the group we were down marginally on bottom line profit.
I think we fared far better than most. We took some good sensible business decisions. We didn't make any redundancies, we didn't stop spending, we didn't put any silly restrictions in place. We carried on looking after people, we did our job well. We explained to everybody what was going on and the staff were very keen to support us.
I've been at this property for 14 months now, and when I came on board here, I explained a bit about the company. Being new and new to four pillars, as a lot of them were, I said: "You'll be looked after. Your jobs will be protected, but we just need a little bit more from you." And they rallied round, which was great to see. For such a new team, and new to the four pillars, they really did take it on board.
Tell me about the Cotswold Water Park - why did Four Pillars choose it as a location?
The builder we were in partnership with saw this site around eight years ago. He saw what was happening in the area - all these businesses were springing up, including lots of New England style lodges [mostly used as second homes or rented out to holiday makers]. Swindon at the time was a business destination that was booming. It was one of the major growth areas. And you had this location, near Swindon for business and the Cotswolds for leisure. It had both strings to its bow, which fitted the criteria [of the brand] and all this investment in the area. He was savvy enough to buy the land at the right price at the right time.
Looking at this area, in the time I've been here I've seen changes. The Country Park and Beach, since Watermark have taken that over, they've invested heavily. We seem to be getting to saturation point now, where they can't build much more property, so they're having to diversify. They're having to start making money out of leisure and tourism.
So there is still more development needed?
Those that can still build more are realising they won't be able to sell the property unless there are things for people to do. Another operator down the road said they are not getting the repeat custom, because there's nothing for the guests to do yet. Everyone seems to have caught on in the last few years, that if we do more, we'll get more out of it. That might not be their core business, but it will improve their business overall.
What does the area have to offer business travellers?
We are very fortunate. We've got 218 beds and two conference rooms which can fit more than 300 people. There's not many of this size of venue. We've just won a piece of business from a major blue chip company, where we were up against a hotel in Scotland.
There's a lot of business in Swindon still. The growth years are perhaps gone, but there's still an awful lot of business there. Hence why there are all the big badges down there. We're close enough, especially with the new bypass [which has reduced the time it takes to drive to Swindon and the M4 to around 25 minutes], which has made the world of difference. We're here for local corporates. The business man or woman on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night, they can get to us so easily now. A couple of years ago it was just a bit more tricky.
A lot of our conference business comes from Cheltenham, Birmingham and Bristol. They can get out of the office, it's somewhere different in a nice part of the country, but it's not too far away that they're dragging people up and down the country. London is only an hour and a half, by well connected roads -it's not that far either.
Any plans to expand the property?
We still have planning permission for a second swimming pool and some more accommodation, which we're looking at very carefully. Is it the right thing to do? Is it the right time?
And we have the lake here. We own Lake 6. At the moment there are restrictions on what we can and can't do with that. We can walk around it, it looks pretty, but we can't do anything on it. Part of the management plan is that we work with a ranger and an ecologist. We're looking at whether we could use it for product launches, water sports, canoe companies, but that's a while away.
What sort of activities can you organise for incentives groups?
We can do simple things a the hotel, such as a treasure hunt. We have the package here at reception. It's £40 for five guests and is text-based. You need a mobile phone and there are certain markers around the lake.
For traditional team building there is the RAF base, in South Cerney [about 10 minutes away by car]. You can do assault courses - we work with a company called Off Limits. They have everything you can ever possibly think of. It just depends on someone's budgets.
Using the water park, there is dragon boat racing, water skiing, wake boarding. The Country Park and Beach is also trying to expand the range of things that they offer. There's so much. The hardest part is knowing what to do and where to start.
We can also organise a trip with our ranger, where groups spend a few hours wandering around the lake, explaining what is there. I can walk round the lake in 20 minutes, but this guy can make three hours very interesting. He knows everything to look for.
Ecologically, the area is of particular interest. What do you do to support that?
As we own the lake, we have to have a ranger. As part of our planning permission we also had to show how we would encourage the wildlife. We have a sanctuary, which is part of a site of specific scientific interest, because of the types of birds that are breeding there, the dragon flies and the bats. The sanctuary is a blocked off area that no-one can walk through. The reed beds are particularly deep there, to encourage wildlife.
Each year, the ranger has to count the birds, dragon flies and bats, and do a footpath survey. The ecologist works alongside the ranger and our own team. Last month we planted 100m of a certain type of hedgerow which wildlife like to live in.
There's a whole manner of quirky things that you wouldn't think were a hotel manager's remit, some we have to do, some we like to do. I'm really pleased that it is Four Pillars I work for - we think we're part of the community; we're going to be here for a long time, let's do what we should be doing here. Good things come to those who sow enough seeds.
The area essentially developed from disused quarries, where the sand and gravel had been dug out and the pits that were left behind filled with water. Are people aware of this history?
They know that they're gravel pits, but I don't think people know enough of the history. It should be capitalised upon. Places like Ironbridge, which is effectively an industrial town, they've capitalised on that heritage. It's man made, and it's something to be proud of. The area has provided ingredients for much of the building work in the UK. Without gravel, building comes to a halt.
How do you see the area developing further?
Somewhere like the Lake District or the Norfolk Broads, they are national parks. One of the things that has been discussed is whether the area could apply for national park status. I think that would be a fabulous thing to happen.
If the Cotswold Water Park was a national park, i think people would understand a bit more - there are leisure destinations, businesses, things to do, days out. Locally people know what's going on, but it would perhaps make it clearer for the wider public to understand.
There are 20 million people within two hours of here, and we really should be getting to them and saying: "Come on, there's plenty to do!"