Leisure & Hospitality
Our team have unrivalled expertise providing strategic and operational support to some of the biggest brands in consumer leisure. As a result of our broad experience, we often advise private equity investors looking to buy or sell leisure assets, or drive performance in an existing portfolio company.
- Accommodation: We advise hotel and hostel brands, cruise operators, and holiday resorts on critical growth topics such as segmentation and brand positioning, revenue management, and loyalty and CRM.
- Food & Beverage: We work together with restaurants, food delivery operators, cafes and coffee shops, pubs, bars, and clubs to drive revenue and profit through topics including pricing and menu design, proposition improvement, and location strategy.
- Entertainment: We address business-critical issues for clients across a diverse set of consumer activities, including cinemas, theme parks, museums and attractions, sports and recreation, and gyms and fitness.
- Gambling & Gaming: Our team advise businesses operating across a variety of models and channels, including fixed odds (e.g. casinos, lotteries), sportsbook (betting shops, online gambling) and gaming and e-sports.
- Consumer Travel: We deliver strategic projects on behalf of tour operators, travel agents, and public / private transport businesses. We also work jointly with our Technology practice to advise upstream technology and distribution platforms, such as aggregators or lead generators.
We work with some of the biggest global players and national names across a broad range of sub-sectors
Our Thinking
Building loyalty through paid memberships & subscriptions
Memberships and subscription products are part of a broad array of loyalty-enhancing solutions and an increasing number of travel, leisure, and hospitality businesses are launching their own. In our latest insight we delve into the current offerings in the market, examine consumer motivations, and, most importantly, shed light on what it really takes to make a loyalty programme commercially valuable.
Riding the AI wave in Travel and Accommodation
Last week, our Travel and Accommodation team hosted a breakfast discussion with industry leaders, exploring how AI is impacting the sector and how brands can capitalise on this. We’ve identified 5 key takeaways from the event to help inform businesses in their approach – both immediate and long-term - to riding the AI wave.
Nurturing Customer Loyalty in China
Chinese consumers are hugely committed to loyalty programs, with two thirds of Chinese residents enrolled in 15+ programmes, and 80%+ willing to pay for an enhanced Membership product. For retailers, leisure operators and brands the benefits of a strong loyalty proposition are clear - 60% of those enrolled are more likely to recommend the company, purchase more frequently, and engage with the brand more.
Investing in Sport: A Slam Dunk?
Sport is a vast, complex market – and it will continue to grow. With evolving fan behaviours, increasing demand for rights and technological innovation driving growth, the industry is expected to surpass $800bn by 2027. There are many areas of untapped potential, as well as growth hotspots, ranging from OTT streaming services to gambling, gaming and eSports.
8 key areas of focus for the Leisure & Hospitality sector
Despite finding ourselves in a period of economic uncertainty, with consumer confidence lower than ever, the leisure and hospitality sector has shown real resilience in Q4, which has continued into the early stages of this year. With distinctly unique circumstances in the aftermath of a global pandemic, and the chance to capitalise on under-performing areas across the sector, there are a range of important decisions businesses must make to successfully survive these turbulent times.
Lifelong Loyalty
Loyalty programmes have long been used as a mechanism to secure customer loyalty and many have become significantly more sophisticated in recent years. Our latest insight unpicks what it takes to generate value from a loyalty programme across the Retail, Travel and Hospitality sectors.
Private Equity & Transactions 2021
2021 was a record year for transactions globally – as activity remained exceptionally strong despite the ongoing challenges of the COVID pandemic, global supply chain issues and the challenges of rising inflation and energy prices during the year.
Trading Places
Just fifteen years ago, the biggest threat to traditional commerce was the internet. Brands that were quick to launch transactional websites (and later apps) emerged as victors. Now those same brands face losing out to the emerging dominance of online marketplaces – the disruptor has become the disrupted.
The road to net zero emissions
Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. As an important contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the accommodation sector has a vital role to play in the effort to decarbonise.
Keep calm and play on: The rise of Digital Leisure
Perspectives on the growth of Digital Leisure and the characteristics of a winning model
It's the uncertainty not the hardship that's so difficult
It's hard to find the right hyperbole to describe these extraordinary times that we find ourselves in. Today more than a quarter of the world's population are operating under lockdown with this number continuing to escalate rapidly
Key routes to value creation in global travel, hospitality and leisure in 2020
As we enter 2020, we continue to see strong interest and activity across a number of key leisure trends – and a number of highly attractive assets that are successfully playing into these themes to drive growth
Aggregators in fitness: helping operators stay in shape or causing injury?
From the rise of low-cost gyms to the growth of new fitness concepts such as hip-hop spin and yogalates, the fitness industry has evolved at an impressive pace in recent decades
The OC&C Fundex 2019: How was it for you?
Hospitality & Leisure is a fantastically diverse sector, but one thing unites every single leisure brand out there – the importance of creating a great guest experience. Easier said than done
Takeaway.com taking the first step towards profitability in Germany?
The acquisition of the German operations of Delivery Hero (Lieferheld, Pizza.de and Foodora) by its rival Takeaway.com (Lieferando) for 930 Million Euro fundamentally changes the landscape in the German food delivery market.
Is Airbnb yearning for the dependability of Bricks and Mortar?
There was an intriguing announcement earlier this week that Airbnb was launching a major new initiative to design and build a new generation of millennial ready houses