Hoteliers in York will this month urgently analyse the implications for their businesses of new hotel developments planned for the city.
The York Hoteliers’ Association, representing 12 of York’s top hotels, will discuss the prospect of calling on City of York Council planners to get would-be hotel developers to justify their actions.
Its chairman, Katharina Barenthien, general manager of the York Marriott, said: “Let’s be cautious about granting planning consents for new hotels in York until we can be sure that an all-year-round market is there.”
She said: “Until we lose the 30 per cent discrepancy in occupancy levels between the worst winter month in January and the best summer months of July/August, new hotels will be stepping into a stretched market.”
It has prompted one York developer to accuse the hoteliers association of “wanting protectionism”.
Mrs Barenthien is stepping into a debate started in The Press last month by Jeremy Cassel, owner of The Grange in Clifton, who is concerned about the number of hotels planned.
These include the prospect of a £10 million project to demolish Holgate Villas and replace it with a 97-bedroom hotel in Holgate Road; a new chain hotel at Toft Geen; recent planning consent for a hotel on the site of motorcycle store Infinity in Walmgate and an application for a new hotel next to Vue Cinema in Clifton Moor.
Mr Cassel argued York’s hotels were already undercutting one another and predicted a succession of failures in the city. “The city is totally over-saturated and it can only lead to tears at bedtime,” he said.
Mrs Barenthien said that while business-advice organisations like Deloitte had said that York was better able to resist the economic downturn than most, benefiting from “staycation” growth, the truth was that there was a dip in winter business.
“The challenge is for the city authorities to attract inward investment of large enterprises to justify any additional demand for rooms.
“In summer, rooms are often at a premium in York, but in winter everyone becomes cutthroat as they drop their prices to attract custom.
“We are not quite home and dry when it comes to the recession. Tourists are cautious and businesses are cutting back on travel. And many people are booking at the last minute after shopping around for best offers.
“In particular the public sector which always relied on York’s hotels offering terrific training facilities is now being cut back. That revenue stream is down to a trickle and it is likely to get worse. These are people who feed us in those crucial winter months.”
She said that the council now had to bring investment into the city if it wanted more hotels. “If they can manage to attract up to 30 more businesses with multiple sites in the UK like Aviva or Nestle or Smith & Nephew where people have to stay overnight, there might be room for more hotels.
“The council has to take that into account when considering these planning applications.
”Those applying for planning consent should have to prove that there is an all-year-round demand near their sites.”
The issue will be on the agenda of the association’s next meeting at the Hotel Du Vin on May 23.
John Reeves, project co-ordinator for the Villas Venture consortium said: “So what they want is protectionism? That is not a planning argument.
“We live in an economy which is survived by those who compete the best. That applies to retailers, services, suppliers and hoteliers. If planning made allowances for protectionism where would it stop? You cannot prevent customers stopping at the place that offers the best in service and price.
“I sympathise with those who are struggling but it is not in a planner’s brief to protect them.”
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