CEO INTERVIEW

NickHalliday

Hotelier Nick Halliday has vast experience in the hospitality industry. A former COO of Hotel du Vin & Bistro and MD of Andrew Brownsword Hotels, since 2019 he has been CEO of Tresco Estate on the Isles of Scilly.

How did the opportunity at Tresco come about? And were you familiar with the Isles of Scilly before taking on the role of CEO?

I knew little about the Isles of Scilly and had never visited - it was one of those chance conversations that turned into a credible opportunity at just the right time for both my career and family. I’d had roles running multi-site hotel operations, had developed brands for family businesses and had previously run a luxury hideaway resort in the British Virgin Islands so I was familiar with island living and used to the dynamic of operating a family backed business. I’ve always enjoyed hands-on roles with diversity and so this seemed an ideal opportunity to draw on past experience and unlock potential at this unique, island-based brand. appreciate environment and love an outdoor life, it’s easy to embrace. You quickly become more resourceful and adapt to a slower pace. Challenges are more likely to be work related or around the fact that travel to the mainland isn’t a certainty but subject to weather conditions - but this is just part of island life and one of the adjustments you make to living here. It’s obviously different to the more corporate roles I’ve had – there’s often a softer touch needed and business aside, there’s an important focus on protecting the infrastructure and balance required to maintain a

The islands happy equilibrium within the island community. economy is reliant Talking business, at the on tourism and time you came on impacted by board, what did the growth and evolution of external influence the business look like up to that point?

What an incredible opportunity. What is it like living-out island life? Have you found anything to be particularly unexpected or challenging, from a personal point of view? How different is it from Hotel Du Vin?

Ultimately, it was a family decision. We came across for a weekend visit in the winter of 2018 and made the plan to move during our nine-hour journey back home to Northumberland – we relocated in March 2019 and to be honest we haven’t really looked back since. If you The initial focus of the role was to oversee and review everything that had a commercial impact on the estate. As it happens, most elements on the island either link directly or indirectly to the business - from the heliport to boat services, to our 110 cottage rentals and range of hotel accommodation, restaurants and bars to the farm, engineering, freight and waste management, as well as retail, spa and leisure.

Accommodation, on some weeks of the year, are sold on an advanced rental or island share basis on varying terms - not only does this help to provide a degree of base business, it equally helps to sustain and support the island’s services. As the largest employer on the Isles of Scilly, the role naturally extends to some involvement in the local economy and I sit on the board of the Islands Partnership, a destination marketing organisation. Success for Tresco is also dependant on strong visitor numbers across all the islands, most things are interlinked and very reliant on a healthy collaboration.

You came at a pretty crazy time, just pre-pandemic. How was it for the Isles of Scilly and specifically your island businesses?

So much has happened across the world since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020 - the initial shock took a while to absorb. We had run a successful recruitment campaign over the winter and were ready and primed for the season launch with all of our team inducted and trained.

With lock-down enforced on the islands, the full impact and potential consequence to livelihoods became clear. As a business, we were quick to draw up contingencies and to establish a nucleus of key workers required to keep the island infrastructure ticking over. The opportunity to open and trade the limited summer of 2020 and then the longer season in 2021 provided a real lifeline - demand was off the scale and despite operating with restrictions we were able to showcase our island experience to new audiences and work on securing future loyalty.

They were challenging times and aside from focusing on business survival we had a duty of care to our island community. With a cross-section of younger families to retired folk, familiar faces within the community are part of the appeal for many visitors who return to experience the magic of the islands every year. Just as in many villages on the mainland, it has a primary school, a church, a post office and grocery store, as well as a working farm and services infrastructure. An important part of the role is sustaining a healthy balance between community and business. There’s a natural can-do attitude that exists here and is probably born out of a need to manage support services ourselves. Whether it’s the fire service, coastguard, first responder or recycling waste, the community is the heartbeat of the island and of the 120 people

who are permanent residents, approximately 85 of them work for the estate.

Post pandemic, we’ve been proactive around investment – whether that’s paying competitive rates to attract skills and personality or tactically upgrading product. The current season is the first real barometer when looking back to pre-pandemic trade levels – our advanced bookings were already pacing 17% ahead but organic pick-up has driven stronger occupancy and naturally pushed the length of season. Demand for 2023 remains strong but these are unsettled times and the islands economy is reliant on tourism and impacted by external influence.

On the mainland in Cornwall last year, there was a booking boom, prices shot-up and consequently much more holiday accommodation was created by people wanting a slice of the pie. But things slowed down this year as people were able to go abroad. Has this been the case on the Isles of Scilly or has the uniqueness/ limited supply of accommodation meant this hasn’t been so?

There was an integrity to our accommodation pricing, we were thinking beyond the short term and although we’d applied inflationary rate growth, the scope of demand meant that we were attracting a lot of new business spread across a longer trading year. One of our key commercial objectives was to grow occupancy around Christmas and the shoulder seasons, effectively extending the trading year to eleven months. The islands offer a unique experience but aren’t necessarily for everyone and with the added cost of travel it isn’t a particularly cheap holiday option. Staycation demand did drive significant first-time visitor volume and based on advanced bookings data for 2023 it’s looking like a reasonable conversion ratio.

Do you have any particular plans or strategies moving forward?

One of the key ingredients of success is employing great people and we are continuing a programme of developing and upgrading our staff accommodation. Our team are also a key part of our brand identity – guidelines we have to support these criteria ensure a natural safety net but in practice they are very subtly displayed and provide a vital role in service delivery and guest experience. We continue to plan for and promote, a strong brand culture throughout our team.

We have also recently completed a sensitive upgrade of our pub, the New Inn – refurbishing the 16 bedrooms and redefining the dining room. Planning for and sustaining a rolling refurbishment programme is critical in maintaining product. Given the lead time for orders, the logistics of scheduling freight and labour, all within limited winter months – it obviously needs planning well in advance and a lot of our energy at this time of year is the result of a lot of preparation and ready to position that plan for action. through our biodigester which cooks the waste over 24 hours, breaking it down into safe, compostable material that can be used as fertiliser.

Similarly, all our glass waste is crushed and recycled on the island and ends up being used in improving our roads and building projects – we have just invested heavily in a state-of-theart glass crusher for our waste shed.

We have embarked on an ambitious programme to move to electric vehicles wherever possible. It’s largely a vehicle-free island with bicycles as the main mode of transport, but we do have a number of works vehicles, buggies and shuttles for transporting visitors from quay to cottage - our aim is to continue replacing all of these with electric options and ultimately be able to self-generate the electricity to run them.

Another key area of focus is our drive to ensure we promote and use as much local produce as possible on our shelves and menus. We are working closely with independent suppliers across the islands to showcase some of the finest produce from land and sea and have some exciting projects underway to ensure we promote our home grown and local initiatives. We are constantly working to protect the environment and be more sustainable – we live close to nature here and are sensitive about the human impact to the island. We already have momentum with initiatives such as our food waste management project. 24% of all our collected waste is food waste and we reduce this waste volume by 80% -feeding everything

For a while, Isles of Scilly Travel had pretty much a monopoly on transport – now you have a regular public helicopter service, how is this going?

All of the travel links to the islands provide a vital service and one of my key aims was always to extend the trading season supporting these operations when volumes

We live close to naturally reduce. This is as nature here and much about freight services as it is about passenger are sensitive about transfers. Penzance Helicopters has the human impact provided island visitors to the island another option into St Mary’s and Tresco and as a key client to the service it offers our guests the year-round convenience of sitting in their cottage some 30 minutes after leaving Penzance. Like a lot of business, it suffered as a result of the pandemic but has bounced back well and is preparing for a busy 2023 with a new operator.

succeedStriving to Photo: Keylu

Leading innovation programme Acceleration Through Innovation 2 (ATI2) continues to drive growth in Cornwall by supporting innovative businesses across the county.

Over the last two years, the programme has engaged circa 500 enterprises, provided support to 324 and awarded 49 grants to Cornish SMEs. Despite the pandemic, the programme is already tracking ahead of its profiled targets and is set to continue delivering high level support until it concludes in June 2023.

Jo Hancock, programme manager, states “Although Innovation grants are just one aspect of the programme, they really help a business to de-risk investment. Innovation can provide a huge boost to a business and we’re pleased to have supported so many SMEs helping them to reach the next level of capacity and growth.” As the only innovation accredited business advisor in the county, ATI2 has enabled hundreds of businesses develop new products, services

Innovation and processes through a bespoke should enable offer of support which includes consultancy, research, academic a business to collaborations, workshops, prototyping, funding and IP advice. survive and thrive Iain Brunt, Director of Aegis Veterinary Technology, states: “Without the support of ATI2 we would be in a much earlier stage of the business, it has accelerated us 1-2 years ahead of what we could achieve on our own.”

Debbie Pearce, director at Assentech, says: “The grant allows us to invest more in our technological advances. It has cost us an awful lot of money to get to this level, meanwhile balancing all the other areas of the business, so it’s given us a little bit of cash flow there to reinvest and push ourselves along a little bit quicker.”

Over the last year, the team have seen an increase in the need for specialised support in new service/product development. In order to fulfil this need, ATI2 has developed an intensive programme which seeks to increase the success rate of ideas through to commercialisation and maximise opportunities for businesses to secure new funding bids.

Embedding innovation into a company strategy should ensure that new ideas or initiatives are aligned to the future direction of the business. It should also ensure that one eye is kept on the horizon and that the business is aware of any trends or market disrupters that could be detrimental to it. If done well, innovation should enable a business to survive and thrive, and this is just one area where ATI2 can really help.

Ian Dibb, Co-Founder of Keylu, says: “When you’re trying to run a start-up and you’re already being pulled in a million different directions, actually having someone to guide you through a process is fantastic and that was one of the real benefits of working with ATI2. My expectations of the support and services available through the programme were exceeded. Massively!”

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Research and Innovation

Based at the Pool Innovation Centre, ATI2 supports innovative businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Led by the University of Plymouth and funded by ERDF, HM Government and Cornwall Council, innovation support is available until March 2023.