Investment programme pays off for hotel group as it aims to be employer of choice

By Dave Hunter

Investment in people and places has been the driving force behind Crerar Hotels in the past few years, according to CEO Chris Wayne-Wills.

Wayne-Wills, who joined the company in early 2020, has overseen a period of growth for the Scottish group, which was founded by Paddy Crerar in 2005. 

Millions has been spent on the company’s portfolio of hotels – which includes properties such as the Loch Fyne Hotel in Inverary, Oban Bay Hotel in Oban and the Balmoral Arms in Ballater – while the company has also brought in senior hires in the forms of a new people director and a director of learning and development to ensure it is an employer of choice across Scotland. 

Late last year, the company was named Small Hotel Group of the Year by the AA, a goal Wayne-Wills had set when he first joined the business.  

The award recognised a period of development for the business, which included improving hotels from three to four stars and securing AA Rosettes. 

The win also coincided with the news that Crerar had increased both its turnover and gross profit, which had grown 30% to £16.4 million. 

As well as being good news in its own right, the financial results were a ringing endorsement of the company’s investment programme. 

And that investment doesn’t begin and end with the bricks and mortar. 

Wayne-Wills told SLTN last month: “I’m completely adamant that the way we have to be more successful for the rest of this decade is that we have to be the kind of company where, if you want to have career-long development and growth, and you’re serious about a career in hospitality then we would be the employer of choice at that moment. 

“We’re fully committed to upskilling our whole team.”

“My exec team is a flatline structure underneath me, so the director of learning and development reports directly to me and oversees apprenticeships, scholarships, management programmes, adopt a school relationships, SVQs, those kind of things. Because we’re fully committed to upskilling our whole team across the piece.”

The CEO hasn’t come to this conclusion in a vacuum. 

Having worked in hospitality for over 30 years, Wayne-Wills made the jump to Crerar from Marriott Hotels, where he was a cluster GM. Prior to that he’d worked for hotel businesses including Macdonald Hotels, Q Hotels and Ramada Jarvis. 

He was headhunted by Crerar founder Paddy Crerar – who last year was awarded the SLTN Award for Industry Achievement – as the founder looked to step down from the day-to-day running of the business. 

Wayne-Wills was largely given free-rein to run the company as he wanted, with Crerar there as a sounding board. 

“There was checking, of course, but in my mind it was that he (Crerar) was the bank and I bought the hotels,” said Wayne-Wills. “And for those three years that we all worked together I probably wouldn’t have done anything very differently if I owned them myself. That ownership mentality is actually really important. It’s part of what works.”

Early last year Paddy Crerar retired from the business, selling it to Blantyre Capital and Fairtree Hotel Investments. 

Wayne-Wills said the transition between Paddy’s ownership and the new parent companies has been ‘very smooth’. 

“They’ve recognised that we’ve got some very good general managers and a really good exec team, which they’ve added to with some new positions,” he said. “And the owner had other assets that we’ve ended up managing and working on and in some cases branding. They bought us but they had some confidence in what we were doing and therefore gave us other assets to work with. So it feels very much on track.”

“I believe hospitality can fix the high street problems.”

Unfortunately, investment is getting tougher across the board as the economy struggles, and Wayne-Wills reckoned politicians at both Westminster and Holyrood need to do their part to help the industry grow. 

Through his involvement with trade group UKHospitality, he has had the chance to speak to operators across Scotland and the UK. And he’s been left in little doubt that more needs to be done at government level. 

“As a hotelier, I can’t understand the economic reasoning behind a lot of the decisions that are taken,” he said, pointing specifically to the Scottish Government’s decision not to pass on rates relief from Westminster. 

In fact, the rates system overall needs to be revisited, he said.  

“It is not fit for purpose now, based on what is happening on the high street,” said Wayne-Wills. 

“And that’s the same for retail. What has happened on the high street, what has happened with internet shopping. That has to change, because it just simply doesn’t work. If businesses are going out of business because of business rates, then there’s something not right. 

“I believe hospitality is the everyday economy. I believe hospitality can fix the high street problems. Where I live there are a number of empty retail units, but there are some new delis opening and some new independent restaurants. That gets people excited and gets the high streets vibrant. Nobody’s particularly excited by an empty shop unit.”

And Westminster also more than has its part to play, said Wayne-Wills. 

“From the Westminster point of view then VAT down to 12% is the main call,” he said. 

“There’s empirical data that says that if you go to 12%, there’s job creation, an eventual return to HMRC in terms of the tax purse,  as well as allowing businesses to thrive. 

“I talk to members from UKHospitality. I talk to peers. No one wants handouts, but we want an environment where our businesses can thrive. There’s a lot of people running very fast uphill going nowhere at the moment in the industry. And when you talk more to pubs and cafes, all of whom are members of UKHospitality, they’re working harder than ever to get less return from it.”