Hotel Direct

From the corner of a bedsit in Ealing to offices in Truro and 25 staff members, www.hoteldirect.co.uk have blossomed since their move to the county.

Founding directors, Mark Wilson and Tara Physick were searching for a business idea that would take advantage of their joint talents. Tara was an Operations Director for a clothing firm and Mark worked in advertising in London. On a road trip through Ireland and Scotland they realised the B & B’s they were staying in ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, and decided they would develop a B&B brand, which they named Sure Stay, to help other travellers choose their accommodation wisely. This precursor to Hotel Direct flourished in rural areas but Mark and Tara quickly realised that there was a bigger business opportunity waiting in London and other cities if they could reinvent their business model and diversify into hotels. Moreover, the internet was just launching in the UK and they thought that an efficient, modern way of purchasing hotel stays could take off. And they were right.

Hotel Direct now has 5000 hotels on their books and employs 25 staff members in roles from sales and assistance through to hotel contractors and web specialists.

As the business operates via websites and the telephone, Tara and Mark could live wherever they liked. They looked into a number of locations before deciding on Cornwall.

They found office space quickly in a modern building in central Truro. Staff work in shifts seven days a week until 11pm at night. Mark and Tara felt that, although the majority of their business is done online, it was important to provide customers who still prefer to book by telephone, access to precisely the same deals and an exemplary customer service experience. Mark said they had ‘no problem finding young, energetic staff in Cornwall to train for positions within our call centre.’

The London hotel market is the biggest in the world, and Hotel Direct is one of the top two agents for London hotels. They are also agents for thousands of hotels in other leading cities in the UK and Europe including Edinburgh, Paris, Dublin, Barcelona and Rome. More recently the company has expanded to destinations as far away as New York and Dubai.

Several staff members need to travel out of the county for business reasons. Mark said that they are happy with the plane or train, though he prefers to travel by train so that he can work during the journey. In the past few years they have had a number of business successes, including placing in the Top 50 Growth Companies in the South West, and launching their highly successful Theatre Breaks through www.hoteldirect.co.uk/theatrebreaks.htm – which allows the customer to combine a top West End hotel plus any London show and get a great package deal.

Cornwall will be one of the best connected places in Europe with the arrival of Next Generation Access (NGA), and Tara and Mark believe that superfast broadband speeds will bring a range of benefits to their business. Mark said: ‘People are naturally impatient when booking online. If a website is slow, an alternative is only a click away. Having high speed internet access into Hotel Direct’s websites is
crucial.’

NGA will also allow them to expand their range of online features. They will shortly introduce a facility that lets users virtually ‘visit’ a hotel before their stay with high resolution online video and virtual tours commissioned by Hotel Direct. The function makes high demands of the websites and their bandwidth. ‘For high quality video to work as a commercial sales tool you need state-of-the-art broadband’, said Mark, ‘and superfast NGA in Cornwall gives us just that’.

To contact Hotel Direct and get a great deal on London hotels or a hotel break further afield, visit their website: www.hoteldirect.co.uk or telephone locally on 01872 261 100.