Michael looks after our hospitality agency business across the region and has over 20 years experience, working with everyone from independent business owners to groups and international brands across a broad range of hospitality sectors to include pubs, restaurant, holiday parks and hotels.
So, Michael, how’s it going? Not too bad thank you, whilst the sector overall has certainly had its challenges and activity tends to quieten down because of this, there are deals transacting across the region at present.
Where are you seeing most activity? Broadly in both the lower cost of entry for lettings and freehold site sales of sub £500,000 and also in the higher end deals, over the £1.5M. This has been the case for a couple of years now and we expect it to continue.
Working on anything fun at present? We always have something interesting going on and at the moment this ranges from a feasting hall in Cornwall to an international branded hotel group committing to a significant hotel development, alongside a large lodge park sale on the North coast of Devon.
In your time in commercial agency what’s the deal you have been most proud of? I think that there are two although they are very near neighbours, one being the St Michael’s Hotel in Falmouth where it was fantastic to find a buyer who bought fully into our client’s vision and since purchase has continued to invest and improve a really stand out hotel. The other is the Gyllyngvase Beach Café which sits directly below St Michaels and has direct access onto the beach. Again, it has been very satisfying to see new owners take on a great existing businesses and through investment and foresight continue to evolve and grow.
And the most interesting? That has to be dealing with the sale of Drakes Island in Plymouth Sound– as a childhood Enid Blyton fan, going out to an abandoned island was somewhat different to the usual! That and a nuclear bunker near Salcombe!
And over the past 20+ years what have you seen change in your sector? I think it has been slightly different sub sector by subsector, for hotels there has been a split with outdated stock being lost and replaced with modern and branded stock and a push for every better quality and experience at the boutique end – whilst we have less hotels now, the ones we have are larger and bedstock overall is much higher. In the restaurant sector we have seen the rise and fall of the High Street casual dining brands, and it feels that this is roughly where it needs to be right now. For holiday parks, there has been a race for space and improvement for facilities and as with hotels there is a split between volume and quality and the middle ground is tough. For pubs we have lost a considerable number of venues this century and this looks set to continue, albeit in much lower numbers. Overall people are more prepared to stay away from home and go out to eat and with such a wide choice of places to go for tea, coffee, cocktails and food the pub has a lot more competition.
So, what do you see in the future for the hospitality industry? For owners there has been great strides to improve service and offer and this looks set to continue and whilst adapt and change is vital for many, maintain and celebrate is best for some. The key need though is for government to show much more support as there has been a raft of measures levelled at the sector in recent years, many necessary from a compliance point of view, but additional costs have taken away the one of the reasons people love the trade – to be successful and make money!
Thank you and what are you going to do after this? I have some heads of terms on a pub in Looe to send out, check that a deal in Portreath is still likely to happen next week and launch a pub and hotel site to the market before the weekend. Always something going on.
