Solihull warned against NEC complacency

ONE of Solihull’s top hoteliers is urging the borough’s tourist chiefs to do more to attract visitors in the run-up to the Olympics.

Tony Hill, who runs The St John’s Hotel on Warwick Road, argues Solihull relies too heavily on NEC-related tourism and should focus more on singing the praises of the town and surrounding countryside.

With the Olympics due to bring a surge of visitors to Britain over the summer, Hill suggests Solihull needs to embark on a tourism drive to tempt tourists out of the capital.

“The Olympics will bring a lot more overseas tourists to the UK, many of them will stay for a couple of weeks and will want to see more of the country than London. Solihull is a great base for visitors who want to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace and experience the quintessential English countryside. We have to tap into that market,” he said.

Hill, who has been in the hospitality industry for 30 years, says Solihull business leaders should join forces to spearhead a tourism drive.

“I’m relatively new to Solihull, so perhaps I see it with fresh eyes. I do feel we need to do more to market the town and the borough to bring people in,” he said.

But Hill says he can understand how complacency may have crept in.

“This hotel is a prime example. Until the Principal Hayley group took it over three years ago, it was very much about banking cash from big NEC events,” he says.

“So there was complacency. Hardly any money was spent on the hotel because it knew it could rely on a steady flow of customers from the NEC.

“But although the NEC attracts about two million visitors a year, the difficult economic climate means we shouldn’t depend upon that. I feel it’s time to start marketing Solihull as a place to come in its own right, especially at weekends and with the Olympics coming up.”