Latest issue of Hospitality & Leisure Design Magazine out now - December 2011

Dec. 21, 2011 - PRLog -- The recent opening of Yotel New York has obviously planted a seed in the collective conscious of those in charge of bedding down the multitudes expected to attend the London 2012 Olympics.

Apparently Stratford is set to receive it’s own pod-style hotel in time for the event. I can see it now - regiments of porters crawling into tiny coffin-shaped pods to demonstrate the finer workings of the shower, how to turn the TV on and off and where to plug in the laptop.

But what really makes me wonder, is what’s to happen to it after the Games, once the torch has been blown out, the Olympic IKEA-style basketball court has been deconstructed and shipped off to Brazil, and the hordes departed to whence they came?
Is there a plan for hosting huge numbers of vertically-challenged tourists in East London?

Will school children be taken on overnight trips to see the redundant Olympic Park and made to stay in the pods to get a true feel for the achievement of the visitors - if not the athletes?

There are already a plethora of Ibis-, Travelodge-, and Premier Inn-style venues up and running in the immediate vicinity, but something I heard today, which unfortunately I’m as yet unable to confirm but can’t resist sharing, is that Stratford is to have its very own Olympic campsite.

Now call me a cynic, but I can’t imagine there’s too much hope of waking up with a tent over your head if you’re a tourist effectively sleeping rough in Stratford. Short of a police presence of one bobby per tent, I think that idea’s a no go.

To add to the general cloud of national woe that we’re currently labouring under, the news of the latest increase in air passenger duty is causing even more concern for the tourism and hospitality sector. The duty is to rise by another eight per cent in April, adding a pretty heft amount to long haul flights.

British Airways’ immediate reaction to the news was to pull plans for an 800-strong staff increase in 2012, despite the fact that the announcement of the proposed increase actually came last March, so was of little great surprise to them. Boss of BA’s parent company IAG expects the harm the increase will do to the economy will exceed the revenue generated. Responding to BA’s tantrum, a Treasury spokesman suggested that the aviation industry would have to play it’s part in restoring public finances. Somehow I think he’s looking to the wrong sector to make reparation for the financial disaster in which we currently find ourselves as a nation.

As this is the final issue of HL&D of the year, I’d like to usher out the year by wishing you all a
very happy, prosperous - and pod-free - 2012.

Eat, drink and be merry - before someone puts another tax on it!

Gill Anderson - editor

http://www.hlmagazine.co.uk/

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