Hampshire

Heather in bloom on lowland heathland, Rockford Common, Linwood, New Forest National Park, Hampshire, England, UK, sunrise, August 2011

Hampshire

Hotel Solutions has been working with Hampshire County Council since 2001 on an ongoing Hotel Futures Programme for Hampshire. Six Hotel Futures Studies have been undertaken over the past 14 years, the most recent in 2015. More detailed sites assessment and planning policy guidance work has also been undertaken for individual local authorities in the county. The County Council has also run a series of hotel investment seminars to disseminate the findings of the Hotel Futures Programme to local authority officers in the county.

 

More than twenty new hotels have opened in Hampshire since the Hotel Futures Programme first started. Many of these have been influenced by the data that has been produced through the Programme.  The work has been particularly valuable in the north of Hampshire where a large undersupply was identified, and where hotel development has since come forward, with 5 new hotels now open in Farnborough, Fleet and Aldershot.

 

Following the 2013 study, a programme of forward action has been put in place which Hotel Solutions was commissioned to lead on behalf of the Council.  This included a roadshow of presentations and workshops for city, district and borough councils in locations  where hotel shortages and potential for intervention were identified, followed by a hotel investment event in London which attracted over 30 hotel developers, operators and investors. Further work has been undertaken in 2015 to update the hotel performance and market information for Southampton, Portsmouth, Fareham, Gosport and Havant to support ongoing hotel investment marketing activity for these destinations. Hotel Solutions has also been working with Portsmouth City Council to identify hotel sites in the city and bring them to the attention of the target brands that the City Council is keen to attract to Portsmouth. We are currently in discussions with Hampshire County Council, Rushmoor Borough Council and Farnborough International Ltd about progressing a Hotel Development Strategy for Farnborough during 2016.

 

‘Hampshire County Council has worked with Hotel Solutions since 2001 on the Hampshire Hotel Development Initiative. We and our district and unitary colleagues have always been impressed with the professionalism of both Lynn and Andrew and their ability to produce detailed but digestible insights into the performance of Hampshire’s hotel sector and then help deliver tangible investments from hotel developers. The 20+ new hotels and numerous hotel extensions in Hampshire since 2001 would not have happened without their help’.

 

Andrew Bateman, Tourism Manager, Hampshire County Council