Foreign Perspectives

Not so long ago, drive-by guests made up a substantial proportion of our bookings but with the combination of a rapid rise in the profile of online reservation systems and mobile internet the drive-by is very much a dying breed.

Over time this trend seems sure to have a substantial impact on the “ideal” locations for hotels. After all, when drive-by guests are less important there’s not so much need to build your hotel right on the highway as used to be the case. Nowadays, it’s much more important to be findable by a satnav system so we’re quite fortunate in being a place on most of the systems in current use.

The other notable effect is that, on the whole, you don’t need nearly so many signs to your place as you used to. Locally it’s quite noticeable that those hotels with the most signs tend to have the least number of guests. That’s down to their concentration on signage to the expense of an Internet presence.