SLH Regional Meeting

Today I was invited to Mar Hall for the Small Luxury Hotels of the World Regional Meeting. This gave an opportunity to meet the other members of SLH in Scotland and to hear from the management company of the success of marketing campaigns over the last 12 months and the plans for the forthcoming year. SLH is very much a brand name which we all buy into. As a small property it is difficult to gain the correct exposure to a worldwide audience and therefore we believe that by associating our self with a brand name which strictly maintains its market credibility we can help spread the world.

However this can sometimes come into direct contravention to the plans of individual hotels, all decision's must be taken with the brand image in mind and often this is in the short term going to be less popular with some of the members. the Scottish contingent would naturally prefer to create their own image which would entice guests north of the border whilst the head office were keen to create a worldwide image based on the generic hotel images rather than scenery and the people.

The conversation often became quite heated with the passion from the Brand on one side and the pride of the country on the other. Sitting on the fence I could see the merits of both being patriotic for my country I also questioned whether Scotland was able to sell itself on the worldwide market alone as well as it could do in conjunction with the rest of the UK. Anyway this was the start of our SLH membership and we look forward to a long fruitful relationship.