Accommodating the greatest show on earth by calling on a global team
COUNTDOWN TO THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES
149 DAYS TO GO
Chris Hale explains why it makes sense to be the official hotel services provider to this summer’s Games
Q. What was your brand’s primary reason for being involved with the Games?
A. There are many compelling reasons why we have chosen to be a partner. Probably the most compelling, certainly at the time we were discussing and signing the deal, was that we had just spent the biggest sum of money of any hotel company ever on relaunching a single brand. IHG spent $1bn (£631m) relaunching Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express all round the world. Given that we had made such a significant investment ensuring that all of our Holiday Inns and Holiday Inn Expresses were excellent, we really wanted to shout about that. The Olympics give you an opportunity to talk about your brand in a way that no other event and no other sponsorship enables you to do, so it was really nice timing. It was also coupled with the fact that we’re a UK-listed company. Outside the US, the UK is one of our most important markets and we’ve got a UK chief executive. We also felt that we had a great story to tell around our corporate social responsibility credentials. We have better disability access than any other branded hotel in the UK, for example. But the two main reasons were around putting our brand on a global stage and secondly using the Olympic relationship to build a bigger sports business within our hotels. It’s an area where I think we’ve traditionally not been as strong. Sport is a massive global business: from professional athletes who are travelling the world going to sporting events to teams and support teams, to amateur players right through to spectators. We’ve seen this and seen an opportunity to win a greater share of that business.
Q. How did you structure the case for involvement to the Board?
A. We were rigorous in looking at what the benefits from the sponsorship might be. There was a significant brand opportunity, to drive preference for our main brands; there was a revenue opportunity, winning more revenue from sports business globally; and thirdly we realised there was a big staff engagement opportunity. The way the contract is structured, we have external marketing rights in the UK but globally we can use the partnership to engage our staff across all of our brands and geographies. By doing that right there was a great opportunity to engage people who aren’t necessarily going to be at the main stadium but to touch them with the magic of the Olympics. That’s something we’ve had a lot of success with.
Q. How have you structured your business to maximise Olympic opportunities?
A. We were very keen from the outset not to be just a sponsor who pays a sum of money for use of some marketing collateral. We really wanted to have a deeper relationship with the Games and underpin that with genuine involvement, so there are two big areas we’re heavily involved in. One of those is the athletes’ village. About 90 of the key staff in the village are going to be ours, the equivalents of general managers in a hotel. The village will host some 17,000 athletes, so it’s a huge operation and we will be at the heart of it. We’ll also be providing some of the staff training. We’ve selected people from all over the world – Beijing, Kenya, across Europe – all handpicked for the task of providing great service.
We’ve also got a role supporting the torch relay. We will be providing a lot of the accommodation and we’ve selected 72 of our staff to be torch runners. We’ve chosen people who have done outstanding things outside of work. People who saved neighbours from floods in the Philippines through to those who give a huge amount of time to a local UK scout group.
Q. The Games present numerous commercial opportunities. Which are most crucial for you?
A. There’ll be a lot of demand in summer for hotel rooms and we’ll be looking to fulfil that at realistic rates. But it doesn’t all happen immediately. In Barcelona, visitor numbers went up from 1.5m in the year of the Games to something like 5m 15 years later. London is a global city already enjoying huge visitor numbers, but it is a chance to give people a great experience so they come back.
Not a lot of people know that in order to win the bid, the London organising committee (Locog) secured the backing of the hospitality industry, and the industry as a whole gave Locog 65 per cent of all of its rooms, some 40,000, at a discounted rate. So, far from using it as an opportunity to make hay while the sun shines, we and other hotels said we were willing to subsidise the Games in our long-term interest.
Q. What has surprised you most about your involvement to date?
A. I hadn’t appreciated it was such an enormous undertaking. I think once we as a country realise the scale of what will happen this summer, I think it’s going to be magnificent. Brits make the best fans in the world.
Chris Hale is head of London 2012 for Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG).