KKR’s purchase of Roompot this week served to prove what we have had our suspicions about for some time: if your hospitality business wants to hear the tills ringing sooner rather than later, it had better have some outside space. Expect to commune with nature far more than you would normally and remember that, if anything untoward lands on you from above, it’s good luck.
The streets of this hack’s home town of Paris were consumed by makeshift terraces - terrasses éphemères - after the announcement that eating and drinking would be allowed again outside the home, but only outside. Since the city turned green, its citizens are allowed inside again, but not all restaurants have moved to do so and, with the weather so relentlessly delightful, the ephemeral terraces have continued to fill the streets; taking up car parking spaces, swarming down pavements, a hospitality colonisation.
The shift in atmosphere has been dramatic, more so than if the feasting was taking place inside. After months of stripped streets, life is flooding out all over, but with the protection of the breeze and the sun, and, of course, all at one metre.
So far so fun for restaurants, but for hotels the picture is not as great, unless you have a restaurant which can be extended across the street. There is, as yet, no way to sleep al fresco - unless there is. And this takes us back to Roompot and a deal which whipped through at a rapid pace so that KKR could enjoy the summer bounty.
Joerg Metzner, director, KKR said: “We have been looking for a platform to invest behind in the fragmented European holiday parks market for some time.” And I bet they have. Roompot consists of 33 luxury holiday home developments. with no communal space, frequently on the coast. And as grandmothers will tell you, there’s nothing so healthy as the sea air. The PE group has swooped in to pick up the ultimate pandemic collection: remote high-end leisure by the sea.
Reports from across the sector suggest a shift in consumer taste towards the likes of Roompot this summer, borne out by STR’s figures, which reported bad for gateway cities, but good for regions such as the Baltic coast.
Emlyn Brown, VP, wellbeing, Accor’s luxury & upper upscale brands, told us last week that the pandemic is “a super accelerator for wellness, because what it’s saying to people is that you need to take into control your own personal health and wellbeing”. Guests want to be somewhere they feel is safe and healthy and that, for many, is in the healing arms of nature. For those hotels unable to offer a burger in a gutter, the challenge will be to offer just that.