Picture caption: HRS Commercial Director, Grant Appleton and CEO of the British Hospitality Association, Bob Cotton presenting the award for Innovation to Kat Bailey of the nitenite city hotel Birmingham.
Seven category winners walked away with the first ever HRS Hotel Excellence Awards this afternoon (30 January), in tandem with the British Hospitality Association and the Best Practice Forum.
Held in the Altitude Restaurant 29 dizzying floors up London”s Milbank Tower and featuring panoramic views of the UK capital, the ceremony was part of the Best Practice Forum”s Business Excellence Awards, designed to showcase tourism and hospitality achievement.
The winners are:
Excellence Through People
Independent ” Crown Spa Hotel, Scarborough
Group ” InterContinental Park Lane
Excellent Customer Service
Independent ” Fox and Hounds Hotel, Chumleigh, Devon
Group ” Radisson SAS, Glasgow
Excellent Social Responsibility
Independent ” Deans Place Hotel, Alfriston, East Sussex
Group ” Apex Hotel, Edinburgh
Excellence in Marketing ” in association with the BHA
Hand Picked Hotels, Seven Oaks, Kent
Excellence in Business Management ” in association with the IOH
The Bingham, Richmond, Surrey
Excellence in Meetings ” in association with MIA
The Cumberland, London
Excellence in Innovation (Judges award)
Nitenite cityhotel, Birmingham
And in his address, British Hospitality Association CEO Bob Cotton, issued a rallying call for the larger hotel chains to learn from their independent counterparts.
”I am pleased to see the strength of good ideas from smaller businesses,” he said, adding: ”Those who have to live by their wits. Maybe we need to encourage the corporates to come up with those good ideas.”
Presenting the awards HRS commercial director UK, Grant Appleton, said: ”The judges had to make some really tough decisions. Each winner deserves its place on the podium, knowing they”ve beaten a really competitive set.”
The blue riband award carried off by nitenite for Excellence in Innovation was earned against a brace of strong competition in the UK”s second city of Birmingham.
Ironically, nitenite was the first hotel group ABTN talked to at the awards hundreds of feet over London”s skyline and marketing manager Kat Bailey explained afterwards the key to success.
”We are completely different,” she said simply. ”We are providing luxury for less with a four star micro-boutique hotel on a miniature scale.”
Open for just 20 months, the 104-room hotel is up against stiff Birmingham city centre rivals, but nonetheless has ambitious plans to expand in London, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and further afield in Berlin.
”We find great locations and adapt our product to them,” said Bailey.