wizla

I will be the first to admit politics bore me ridged, I used to rap about it back in the late 80s what with the poll tax and everything but if I'm honest I'm fairly clueless and only have a basic grasp of the forthcoming britexit scenario.
My question is how will it effect uk Hilton's or in fact any uk hotel program?....... will it effect prices ( up or down ) or even occupancy?.......I've heard talk of many foreign workers returning to there native countries as its going to be simply not worth the pay to work in the uk......again these are only snippets I've heard on my travels maybe you guys have a more reliable insight.

jamesteroh

I never thought about the exit on hotel prices. Hopefully it doesn't cause them to increase, since London is already a very expensive city to begin with.

If business travel ends up being down hopefully the government will look at eliminating the "luxury" tax out of Heathrow. I like to use my upgrade certs on LHR flights and hate paying that tax. In fact the taxes out of heathrow are so absurd I know people who will fly into CDG and take the train to London and then spend the last night of their trip in Paris and will save a lot of money just due to the high taxes to fly out of London.

:D!

Who knows.

I would say that at "regional" UK Hiltons, I think most guests are UK residents, so I doubt being in the EU or not will have a great impact. If travelling to the EU becomes more onerous, or the Ł drops vs the €, more Brits will travel around the UK, so there may be more demand for rooms which would lead to increased prices.

At Hiltons in major tourist hotspots, e.g. London, Edinburgh, Bath, firstly, there are plenty of non-EU guests, Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Australians etc. If the Ł drops further relative to other currencies, the UK will only become a more attractive destination. There's no indication that the UK will make it harder to visit, in fact, so far the UK is one of the few major western countries that is not planning to force everyone to get approval before they travel here (eTA, ETA, ESTA, ETIAS... NZ is also talking about it, though I suppose the UK government will want to roll something like this out eventually)

As for staff, again at the "regional" Hiltons most of the staff appear to be British. If you came from an EU country but are now settled in the UK with a good job at a Hilton hotel, maybe you have a family, you aren't just going to leave, why would it suddenly become "not worth the pay". In fact having the option to leave for another EU country (which your British colleagues will lose) may make it more likely for you to stay, whereas a British person who is considering moving to Germany etc. had better try and do so ASAP while we are still definitely allowed.

eponymous_coward

Bingo. All too dependent on "hard/soft Brexit" and macroeconomic trends that result from it.

The UK was never part of Schengen so travel into/out of the UK to the Continent/rest of the EU isn't really affected, with the possible exception of Northern Ireland/Ireland if a hard Brexit imposes a hard border there. The tricky part is what happens when air treaties go pffft in a hard Brexit. But again it's all contingent, and again Hilton will just be riding the macroeconomic tide.

thunderlounge

I do that as well and save quite a good bit doing so, even after additional travel. It’s not as convenient, and if I were pressed for time I may not, but thus far it hasn’t been an issue and I enjoy Paris.

wizla

Thanks for the thoughts guys, I guess none of us have a crystal ball and it's a waiting game, however I can't help but feel a little uncomfortable about the whole thing.

indufan

OR you just just fly INTO London and OUT OF Paris.

TTL

Properties in "business London" will shortly have to start for looking for new customers: DoubleTree Tower Bridge or Docklands, Hilton Tower Bridge, Hilton Canary Wharf, etc. The rest may survive but sinking prices will be evident. Whoever that would then interest...

Looking forward to Hiltons in Amsterdam

hugolover

If you can afford and relish further Amsterdam Hilton hotels, with their crazy prices, then based on your logic, you can practically live in London Hilton's post Brexit! Bring it on .

Guess those Uniliver corporate rates in London will continue tho huh?

TTL

OT: No reason to travel to London after Jan 2019 as the Agency I attend is being relocated. I have been checking the prices in Amsterdam and have no worries. The same applies to other costs such as that of transportation. /OT

garykung

There will be no impact to Hilton. Hilton is an international brand that is based in the U.S. Rest assure that a change in the U.S. could have a stronger impact than britexit.

For the rest of the U.K. based program, it may or may not depending on the tourism.

The prices are already down relatively due to drops in GBP.

Occupancy-wide, the U.K. should not suffer a major problem. It is unlikely that the HM Government will require EU passport holders to get a visa visiting the U.K., which should have no impact to tourism. But business travel could be impacted.

Not related - hotels are not designed for long-term accommodation, although they could. So the impact to hotels is definitely less than the real estate market.

chrism20

I think @wizla may have been referring to the extremely large number of European staff working in hotels rather than them staying in them (It was the way I read it anyway) whilst working in the UK.

In London and some of the cities around the UK there is an extremely large percentage of the workforce in some properties who are not British.


Who knows what will happen long term, hopefully by the end of the year the picture will look much clearer, I suppose it all depends what the dancing queen comes back from the summits with. Come April though dancing queen will probably be replaced with money, money, money or SOS.

wizla

Hahahahaha......." dancing queen"!....... love it.........yes you are right I was referring to the huge amount of European staff working in London and the uk, I guess most agree we will simply have to wait and see what happens.

thbe

craigthemif

Watch Fawlty Towers again to be reminded of what hotel service is like when Brits are in charge. And replace Manuel with VIcky from Little Britain.


In practice, there will probably be temporary visa schemes so that the stereotypical farm worker, NHS nurse, hotel cleaner, etc. can still come to the UK to work. If not, hotels will probably have to pay more in order to retain their staff - instead of relying on a revolving door of "here to learn English" Europeans - which might eventually feed into higher room rates.