The Biggest Threat to Hospitality Right Now (It’s Not AI)

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to the Hotel Growth Podcast, the show where we explore the ideas, insights and strategy shaping the future of hospitality. I'm Adam Hamadash, hotel growth strategist, founder of Formula, and someone who spends a lot of time helping hotels navigate digital change, commercial pressure and increasingly the AI driven era, uh, of discovery. Today's episode is a big one. I'm joined by Robert Richardson, chief executive of the Institute of Hospitality, the global professional body for hospitality managers, representing more than 16,000 members across over 100 countries and setting the professional standard for our, uh, industry worldwide. Robert is a former hotel general manager with deep operational experience and now leads an organization that is approaching its 9th 20th anniversary, a remarkable milestone in an industry that rarely stands still. In this conversation we dive into some of the most pressing structural challenges facing UK hospitalities today. From the growing mismatch between rising costs and what the market will realistically pay, to government policy, rates reform, and the wider perception of hospitality as a nice to have rather than an essential profession. We also explore the push for chartered status for hospitality management, what that could mean for the profession and why reframing hospitality as a career, not just a sector, is so important for its long term future. And yes, we talk about AI, of course, we have to, where it genuinely adds value, where it's overhyped and um, where leaders need discernment rather than blind adoption. If you're a hotel owner, operator, commercial leader or someone who simply deeply cares about the future of this industry, this episode will give you perspective, clarity and importantly, a sense of where real influence sits. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Robert Richardson. Robert, it's great to have you on the Hotel Growth podcast. Welcome to the show. How are you today?

Speaker B: I'm really well, Adam, how are you?

Speaker A: Yeah, really well, really, really good. I'm really excited about our conversation. For those that uh, uh, perhaps have been living under a rock and don't know who you are, perhaps you could introduce yourself and give us a bit of a summary about what you do in our industry.

Speaker B: Sure. So my name is Robert Richardson and I'm currently the Chief Executive of the Institute of Hospitality. And we're the professional body for those working in or studying hospitality and tourism management worldwide. We are, in point, the largest professional body for hospitality managers globally. We have more than 16,000 members in more than 100 countries. We provide professional recognition for more than 1100 programmes of study or qualifications in 24 countries and we have an academic partnership into, uh, plus 120 universities around the world. Effectively, we set the professional standard for hospitality management and we support our, uh, members from every stage of their career from university to retirement. We're nearly 90 years old. We're coming up to our 90th anniversary in 2028, so we're starting to think about what that looks like. But in terms of my background, I'm, um, a hotelier. The last 12 years of my career before I came to the institute, I was a hotel general manager between two very, very different properties. And, uh, well, as I sit here today, I'm about to head off to London and then Bournemouth, where I've, uh, got speaking engagements all the way through to next Monday. So it constantly amazes me that people want to listen to something I've got to say.

Speaker A: Well, I've heard you speak, Robert, and I think you're being very, very modest there. And it's always really engaging and insightful and I'm excited about our conversation today. And I didn't that the institute is coming up to 90 years old. Yeah, that's what the, uh, landmark.

Speaker B: Yeah. In May 2029. It's uh, our 90th birthday, which is fantastic and I think a mark of the value of this professional body that we're coming up on nine decades of life. It's incredible. And something that gives me a lot of comfort is I'm the current, uh, incumbent of the chair. But there were many brilliant people before me and there'll be many brilliant people after me. And I think for a professional body that supports you into being the best version of yourself through your care, 90 years of Providence and experience is very, very useful. And certainly in the challenging times we find ourselves in, not just in the uk, but globally, I think very comforting.

Speaker A: And I'm glad you mentioned that because that's actually my first question for you today. There are obviously many challenges right now in our industry.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: From where you sit, what's the biggest structural challenge facing hospitality if we stick to the uk? Um, right now?

Speaker B: Sure. I think it's the mismatch between what it costs to deliver hospitality and what the market will pay. And I mean that's from a 20 seater cafe up, uh, to the Ritz and everything in between. Our, um, margins get smaller every year and our cost burden goes up and there is a limit to affordability. Let me give you an example. I know you said to talk about the uk, but trust me, there's a point. I go to Switzerland periodically. We have clients there, always a privilege. And I remember the first time I went, someone said, made a Joke about how I need to take out a second mortgage. And I went and, um, I was braced for it being an expensive trip and it wasn't. And, um, I started to look into it because it was something I'd heard a lot. And it's not that Switzerland is cheap, it's that we got more expensive. So it was normalised. I thought that, um, a night out in London was, uh, a lot more expensive than night out in Switzerland. So it comes down fundamentally to affordability. What you can charge for something has a limit. And, um, hospitality, there is only so much someone will pay for a hotel room or a breakfast or a dinner. Um, and with our costs going up every single year, that's becoming more and more challenging for people.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that. And I mean, I suppose there's almost like a lag between, you know, hospitality's costs go up. So therefore our, you know, the fees that you charge for a room or for a coffee, whatever it is, has to go up. But of course people's wages aren't necessarily going up at the same rate, so inevitably people will go to that hotel less or they'll eat out less and all these things as, uh, I guess a knock on effect to the industry.

Speaker B: It's a vicious circle. Government raises the cost burden. So NI rates choose your poison. Hospitality adapts by raising prices. That means customers have, um, a bit less money. The money will not go as far as it would last year. That pushes up inflation. So government in turn raises taxes again. And it's a doom loop that seemingly has no end currently.

Speaker A: So what do you think? Government still misunderstands about hospitality as a sector, uh, particularly when it comes to sort of business viability, because it sounds like hospitality businesses are, uh, reacting to the market conditions, whether that be the price of beef going up 60% or whatever. The thing is, they have to put it onto the customers.

Speaker B: No, yeah. Which it's regrettable. But hospitality, like any business, they are for profit. And at the moment, most hospitality businesses sadly aren't making a profit. But if their costs go up, you, uh, can either raise the prices accordingly or not be in business. Coming to affordability. I was somewhere recently, it was £6 for a coffee and you're standing there thinking, this must be the best coffee I'm ever going to have. It wasn't, sadly, but you understand the cost that's gone into that price point to your point about what government, um, misunderstands about hospitality. I think they still look at us as if we are disposable Luxury, a nice to have if you like, rather than something that's essential. We're the fifth largest sector in the uk, we're the third largest employer. That's not a discretionary sector. Uh, that is something with value outside of the obvious of hospitality. We live in pretty dark times at the moment. So today as we record this is the four year anniversary of, of the Ukraine war as example. People have mental health burdens like they haven't had previously and they go to the pub or the cafe to combat loneliness to actually have a conversation with someone. And I think the intrinsic social value of hospitality is often forgotten about, especially when you're looking at us almost like a cash cow. Recently the government in its budget increased rateable value. They reviewed the rates and I have hotel members that are going up by 117% which is insane. It's unaffordable. We have a small group of hotels in membership and they said it would be cheaper for them to close 200 rooms, which is absolutely bonkers. So I think government looks at us as to an extent a piggy bank, if I'm honest, because the taxation bill always seems to go up with us. They don't look at us as a, uh, profession, they look at us as a job that you do. Um, and I think there's a need to reframe the narrative. People that work in hospitality are some of the most empathic, kind, generous, clever, strategic people I've ah, ever met. And every job requires a certain mindset. So the mindset of a police officer is different to the mindset of a surveyor. So for hospitality you have to care, you have to be outgoing, you have to be kind effectively because we look after people and I think there's a degree of familiarity. So people look at us as a constant that's always been there and they can't ever see what the world would be like without us. Which is I think one of the reasons why we keep getting the NI increase two years ago, uh, the rates changes last year and then there'll be something else, minimum wage changes. It's almost like there's an expectation that we will just continue to adapt and

Speaker A: I suppose, you know, only what now, six years after Covid. And I think we all felt that need and desire to connect, you know, in hospital hospitality settings when, when we couldn't for some time. And certainly I think for most people it rekindled the love of the pub or the cafe or whatever it is, every establishment that you used to frequent.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think absence does make the Heart go fonder. It sounds like you're eating cards, though. People missed us. People missed the social interaction. I know I had, um, a challenging day at the end of last year and I went out and I had a beer in the local pub and by the time I left, you just had that moment to decompress. And certainly in the UK we have, uh, a greater work from home culture than we did previously and there's a lot of good reasons for that. There's a lot of pros to working from home, but equally we start to lose social identity, interaction. So I know myself having had, um, a huge operational background in my career, there's nothing I dread more than a day where I'm going to get up, do my job in my house, have dinner and go to bed and not leave my four walls. So being able just to go out and have that bit of interaction is incredibly valuable.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I have to cover something as well that you mentioned, obviously, about the rates changes that we're seeing coming this year. And it would be remiss of me not to sort of touch on the fact that seemingly pubs are getting a better deal than other parts of hospitality. Um, what's your take on the sort of the slight inequality there?

Speaker B: I think the fundamental question before we address the inequality is what is a pub? M so, uh, you know, I've got members that have pubs with rooms or pubs with restaurants or. There doesn't seem to be any actual guidance as to what a pub is and I'm not sure government's quite figured that out either. Um, I think honestly, pubs shouted the loudest and, ah, they got noticed. And in British culture there is value to the publishers. So I think it's almost entrenched into our, uh, culture as to, uh, what a pub is and its place in community. So I think it has a competitive advantage over, uh, a conference centre or wework or a hotel. I do think it's grossly unfair. We are one industry, so any rates reduction should be uniform. But equally it's the equivalent of me charging you a pound and then saying you can have 15 pence back. It's not the greatest deal either. No. Uh, I know when the rates re evaluation came out, I was watching the budget and I did a quick back of an envelope calculation as to what the last hotel I ran as GM would be paying in rates. And I'm very well aware of the sleepless nights I'd be having right now if I was still running that hotel, because it's a huge ask and um, without getting too political, this government has a lot of form for u turns and I'm um, sure we've not gotten to the end of the rate story yet as to what that looks like. I don't have a crystal ball. But the space between announcement and revision gets ever wider and speculation creeps in and that's when businesses stop investing, stop employing, making redundancies. And these are things that can't be undone when someone's been made redundant or a business has fundamentally changed, can't go back in time. So I um, think there has been, if I'm charitable, a hazard approach to our industry in recent years and I think that has real meaningful impact on um, the people that work in what is an industry employer is the third largest in the country.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I have to wholeheartedly agree on your point about the sort of, the gap causing sort of ambiguity in the market beyond hospitality because you know, if there's a bit of uncertainty, you wait. It's what business does. You know, let's just give it three months before we invest that big chunk of cash. And of course the knock on effect is profound across, across the whole of industry it is.

Speaker B: And when you've had those three months and that money's been sitting in your bank account, you're going to be a little less inclined to spend it anyway because mentally you've adapted to not making that change or that investment. And I think employment's at a five year post pandemic high as we sit and record this. I'm sure that's related to the fact that we've made employment more expensive. Yeah, I say that without being facetious.

Speaker A: Let's segue then into hospitality as a career choice. Because if hospitality is to be seen as a sort of a long term attractive career again, what, what do you feel has to change and who needs to lead that change?

Speaker B: I think the biggest mindset we've got is hospitality is a sector. Uh, it's not, it's a profession and it's a profession scale. We in the UK have over 3 million hospitality employees directly, which is huge. Something the Institute's doing at the moment is there's a gap. Hospitality is not a recognized industry, fifth biggest sector, third largest employer, not formally recognized by government. That to me is really quite bizarre. So we're in the, the process of applying to become a chartered professional body. And that puts hospitality management on par with chartered accountants, surveyors, what are, uh, colloquially termed professions of state, so professions of import. And um, I would argue if you're a hospitality manager running a 200 bedroom hotel. You're not just running a multi million pound business, you're in charge of people's safety 365 days a year. You're in charge of a huge team. That to me sounds like a profession that needs celebration and regulation and chartered status matches that. Um, we hosted a reception in Parliament last month and we announced that our application is now endorsed by a huge Department of State who have gone on record in saying that it is in the national interest for hospitality to be chartered and have a chartered institute for hospitality. And that's a huge step. And I do feel parts of government, certainly the parts of government we've worked with, do actually recognise the need to recognise hospitality as the industry that we know it's always been. So there is willingness there and I think in terms of making it an attractive career, the opportunity to be a Chartered Hospitality Manager, uh, is something to strive for. It really is. It's something I believe in, which is why we've worked so hard on this project.

Speaker A: Mhm. And rightly so. And I can see the benefits if, if it comes off. And I guess just to draw parallels with your recent trips to Switzerland, seemingly everywhere I go on the continent, you know, our industry is seen as a profession in other places. So I mean, I appreciate not necessarily every country has a monarchy, but do they have other countries have this sort of chartered equivalent that sort of supports the hospitality as a profession?

Speaker B: There's different ways of recognizing, uh, different industries around the world in terms of chartered status. It is a globally recognized but fundamentally British thing. Effectively. That sounds like I'm selling it, but charters have been around for a very, very long time. The very first charter was the Magna Carta, which I think we've all heard of from school. But it's something that is so ingrained in our society as a benchmark of quality. I think you might not need to know what a Chartered Practitioner is, and I'll explain what it is in a moment, but you know, it is a benchmark of quality. To be a Chartered Practitioner in any industry, you have to continually develop yourself and that is assessed, peer reviewed and regulated. So you have to complete mandatory cpd, which in turn, um, ensures you are the best version of your professional self. The fact that you have a chartered accreditation is demonstrable of the fact that you are, uh, ever evolving professional. And that is really important. We all work hard to better ourselves. We all work hard to increase our skill set. This formally recognizes it.

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Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: I'm going to change my tack now in terms of my questioning and obviously this is the hotel growth podcast. We have fundamental change happening throughout the world. We've managed to go 18 minutes without talking about AI, so I think that's a cause for celebration. But I'm interested to know from you, Robert, how do you think hospitality leaders need to adapt their thinking over the next few years with everything that's going on?

Speaker B: I think there's a lot we can't control. So you spoke about AI. AI is here whether you want it or not. So I know people that if they're looking to go and stay somewhere, they'll go into ChatGPT and they will start looking what's out there. So it's a platform for securing business and it's something that we need to embrace. There's a lot of fear around AI. Will it take our jobs? Frankly, no, it won't. We're in a people focused industry. What it will do is enhance our ability to do our jobs well or run our business well. I used to use a system which is attuned for dynamic hotel pricing 24 7. If you just relied on a person, you're relying on them when they're in business. If you suddenly see a surge in market demand at 3 o' clock in the morning, your member of the team that would deal with that at 3 o' clock in the afternoon. Is not going to be there. So you're going to lose hours and potential revenue growth. Whereas an AI dynamic pricing system can look at that spike, adapt your prices accordingly and make you money.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So obviously a great example of AI usage. I think, I always think that when people talk about AI, it's so wide and varied, isn't it, that it could be, you know, an AI revenue management system, as you were suggesting. It could be an AI chatbot, or it could simply be a generative usage of generative AI. When looking for hospitality businesses, what do you feel hospitality businesses need to be thinking about? Do you have any sort of non negotiables about what you think? Absolutely. That those are the things that should be using AI and those are the things that you absolutely shouldn't.

Speaker B: I don't think personalizing a guest experience through the use of AI is particularly helpful. There's an element of AI that is the snake that eats its own tail. All the information that it has, we've actually given it. So I think if you're looking at business infrastructure, so revenue management to an extent, health and safety, to be fair design, I think there's a lot of use for it there. There's some AI generated design pictures of hotels out there, hotels that are in development that look almost as if they're the real thing, which is tremendous. It really helps you visualize the concept. Conversely, using AI to personalize a guest stay, I'm not sure that's really going to work.

Speaker A: Why do you think that?

Speaker B: Have you ever gone into AI and asked, uh, IT to tell you about you?

Speaker A: Yes. Worrying.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Strangely enough, so have I. And sometimes it gets it right and sometimes it gets it wrong and sometimes it gets it spectacularly wrong. Uh, so why would you rely on it? Whereas if you have an interaction with your guests, you will pick up that personalization, you will have that memory of what they like, you will profile them and you will make the stay better. Conversely, you go and stay in a hotel and you're a frequent stayer, you've got established rapport with the hotel, with the team. You really aren't going to get that from a tablet.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's so fascinating, isn't it? When I saw a wonderful image on, uh, social media at the weekend where a guy had asked, he screenshotted his phone and he asked ChatGPT that there is a car wash 50 meters away. I want to get my car washed. Should I drive or should I walk? And it said, oh, it's only 50 meters away. You should probably walk to the car wash to get your car washed, which is obviously ridiculous. Uh, I thought it was a brilliant example of obviously you're trying to trick these tools to give you a sad answer. Uh, but it's clearly not perfect. And I think we have to all have a healthy amount of skepticism. Even when the technology is extremely sort of effective at, uh, giving us a good answer. It's sort of, you know, I think we have to sort of question it perhaps more than we're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's an element of us, and I generalize us blindly following it. I know someone and, um, I have very big concerns about this. But they feed their businesses balance sheets into ChatGPT to write the narrative. Can you really trust that you're putting that out there?

Speaker A: Well, and therein lies another big sort of issue, isn't it, that we're certainly, for smaller businesses, throwing quite sensitive data. Ah. Into ChatGPT is potentially quite harmful because we'll make mistakes and maybe it will say something that it really shouldn't do to somebody else because you've fed it.

Speaker B: Precisely. And to my point earlier, AI is actually only as good as the information we give it. And, um, we're not perfect as a species, so people lean into our biasness or what's in vogue on social media. You won't get an experience, informed decision. I think there's a lot of positivity around it. I think there's a huge amount of use for it. But we've always got to remember, uh, it's a useful tool in the Lousy Master. Again with metaphors. It's just we need to know when to use AI and when not to use AI.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the discernment that you suggest there will become hopefully easier as time goes on. I'm interested to know you've obviously worked with lots of businesses in your tenure at the Institute of Hospitality, but obviously further in your previously in your career. What do you feel separates leaders who cope well with uncertainty from those that struggle?

Speaker B: I think. And, uh, I think we've all had experience of this, certainly with the pandemic or more recently, rising costs, I think the best leaders are the ones that communicate early, uh, communicate often and communicate honestly. I've always looked at the teams I've led as focus groups. If you look around the room, when you have your management team, by and large you'll see a group of very, very different people with very different experiences and, uh, very different priorities in life. And that makes a great focus group for a problem. So I remember we had a cyber hack towards the end of 2024. It's the first time we'd had one and it was really challenging for us. And there's something you can't train. The day your hotel catches by, you've got a well trained team, that this is now going to be a lived memory, lived experience. So I sat and said, what do you think we can do? And, um, we had a lot of different ideas. We found a way forward. Certain things that we did, certainly in our communication with our members, I don't think I would have thought of. So the fact that the team rallied round and this is when I say the team, everyone at every level, this wasn't just the management team, this was everyone. And, um, we dealt with it really quite effectively. And what effective looks like is the loss to the business was relatively small, the loss in faith, because obviously it's a cyber hack, you control people's data. The fact we managed that so well and we communicated so well with our members meant we retained everyone, which was obviously, um, very important to us. But this was something that really had the potential to close the business down. So to your point, what separates leaders? I would say communication. There's a lot of leaders out there that work dictatorially. There's a lot of leaders out there that put the world on their shoulders. Neither is healthy. And if a leader is so arrogant as to think that they have all the answers, then they've probably not been challenged enough.

Speaker A: Yeah, I remember when that happened and I think I remember emailing you and saying how brilliant the communication was. I remember.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: What I think you and your team did brilliantly was when you had nothing to say, you still said something. You know, we're still working on this. Please bear with us, you know, rather than sort of waiting that period of let's say something when we've got something to say. Actually, there's real strength in saying something even when you haven't got something to say.

Speaker B: Well, that's the point. The absence of communication by speculation and speculation in challenging contexts always has a negative impact because you don't know what's going on. Is my data safe? Is my money safe? No one's talking. Um, your mind is not going to go to a place of calm. It's going to go to the worst case scenario. And that for us means losing members, which means losing business. So communication. We communicated early, we communicated often and we weathered what was a really challenging time. And I think that's a good way of looking at leadership, because there'll be times where your experience will guide your business through and there'll be times when it won't. And at that point you need help. And, um, communication is key there. Equally, we look at hospitality, the better leaders are the ones that are visible. I don't think there's any realistic expectation for, let's say, a hotel general manager to know how to do every single job in that business, but they should have an appreciation for it and visibility. Uh, I think certainly when I've led teams, the fact that you're visible, you're approachable is helpful. People give. I'm not really into titles, so titles like general manager or chief executive, they can be intimidating. So you have to work hard to be the person behind m the title, not the title in and of itself. I know someone who they led by job title. So this is my title. You will respect it and it really, in 2026, it doesn't work that way. You respect the individual and the title is secondary.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I completely resonate with that. I think I've found certainly in my own business by, you know, I make a lot of mistakes, but I'm always honest about it and say, listen, you know, like, I want to make sure that I'm seen to say, no, I'm really sorry, I got that wrong. And then people can sort of see not hiding behind your senior job title. And I found that that's what certainly worked well for me.

Speaker B: The point is we are going to get things wrong because we're only human. And when we do, we need to own it, be seen to own it. And if we need help, ask for it. There's absolutely no shame in turning around and saying, you know what, I can't get this over the line, I need some help. What do I do? And I think you'll get an awful lot more respect for it.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, my final question for you, Robert, is looking ahead. What gives you confidence about hospitality's future and what should operators focus on to still be thriving in 5 years time? 5 years feels like a long, long time away with what's going on at the moment. But I'm interested to get your take on it.

Speaker B: It does. I mean, I think we've got to remember that we are intrinsic to society, we are actually important. Government doesn't have to understand hospitality to understand its economic impact. And at some point they will be forced to look at it and say, we want that money in UK plc. We want that money to go into our Communities, we want this. So I don't think they're quite blind enough not to understand the value. I think they can't quite put a finger on how to recognize, um, the value. But that's something we are working on with our chartered status application, conversely to operators, I think. And it's hard, it's hard at the moment when every year the budget comes and our bills go up. Every April, our bills go up and it's seemingly without end. But I think we've got to remember that people are always going to celebrate, they are always going to gather, travel and mark moments in life. I think hospitality is the industry that's there for the moments that matter. We're there for the birthdays, the weddings, the funeral, sadly, and we are valuable. So I think sometimes we just need to sit back and say, look, they might feel that government doesn't value us, but certainly our community does. And I think that is important. I think the future really belongs to operators that remember the value of their business, but also do that with discipline. I think we are all watching the pennies right now. Rightly, um, I think you just have to find that balancing act between what your business needs to do to financially survive and what your business needs to do to maintain its value. And when I say value, I mean value to the community. So it sounds easy and I know it's not, but hospitality is one of the oldest industries in the world and although times are challenging, it isn't going anywhere.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, listen, Robert, I really enjoyed our conversation and let me commend you as well on the great work the Institute of Hospitality is doing. I've been a, uh, member now for some time, maybe six, seven years, and I think that there's some brilliant work that you're doing that I see. So please keep that up. And very best of luck for the chartered status. I really hope. Hope we get it.

Speaker B: Well, it's not just me. I've got a brilliant team and every, uh, Achievement Institute has is down to some really incredible people working behind the scenes. So I just get the privilege of leading it.

Speaker A: Robert, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Loved our conversation and, uh, yeah, appreciate your time.