While venues shut their doors at record speed and operators fight shrinking margins, hospitality’s biggest problem isn’t footfall. It’s familiarity.

 

Across the industry, the same people sit around the same boardroom tables. Same backgrounds. Same networks. Same thinking.

 

Leaders call it “trusted experience”. Its comfort disguised as strategy. And comfort is quietly costing this industry innovation, growth and, in some cases, survival. If hospitality wants real change, it must first stop hiring in its own reflection.

 

Hospitality prides itself on relationships. We’re a people industry. We value loyalty. We build long careers together. But somewhere along the way, trust stopped meaning high standards and started meaning familiar faces.

 

· Board roles filled by former colleagues

· Senior hires pulled from the same networks

· Advisory teams built on friendships

· Less than 10% of chief executives are female 

· Ethnic minorities occupy only 2% of board-level positions in UK hospitality companies

 

It feels safe.

It feels loyal.

It feels comfortable.

 

And it creates leadership environments where:

· Decisions go unchallenged

· New ideas struggle to break through

· The same strategies repeat, even when they stop working

 

According to UK corporate governance studies:

· More than 65% of board appointments across traditional industries come from existing networks or prior working relationships

· Nearly 70% of leadership teams share similar professional backgrounds

· Companies with low leadership diversity are 33% less likely to outperform financially

 

So why does closed leadership circles become toxic? When everyone in the room has walked the same path, they carry the same blind spots.

 

So, businesses choose harmony over progress. And slowly, the industry stagnates. Innovation doesn’t die in crisis; it dies in comfort.

 

Leena Nair has been the global chief executive of Chanel since January 2022, and her leadership has marked a transformative era for the iconic brand. Under her guidance, more than 60% of management roles at Chanel are now held by women, showcasing her commitment to gender diversity. 

 

Known for her dedication to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, Nair serves as a prominent example of effective leadership in a major global brand, proving that diverse representation is not just an ideal but a pathway to innovation and success.

 

Tony Robbins puts it simply: “Growth only happens when you step into discomfort.” Yet hospitality leadership structures often do the opposite. That explains why the same issues cycle every year:

 

· Outdated operating models

· Slow technology adoption

· Reactive strategy instead of proactive growth

 

Different decade. Same problems.

 

Across industries, including hospitality-heavy sectors:

· Businesses with diverse leadership teams are 25%-36% more profitable

· Companies with fresh external hires in senior roles innovate two times faster

· Organisations dominated by internal networks are significantly slower to adapt to market changes

 

In the UK hospitality sector, a recent study by WiHTL and Diversity in Retail revealed that nearly half of hospitality boards are entirely white, with ethnic minority representation at the top three senior levels (executive committee, board and direct reports) dropping to just 5%.

 

Additionally, research by Chess Executive (to be published soon) indicates that ethnic minorities occupy only 2% of board-level positions in UK hospitality companies. 

 

The industry isn’t failing because demand is gone. Outside of taxes, it’s failing because leadership evolution is too slow.

 

As a small supplier to the sector, I take pride in the fact that my leadership team has been with Bums on Seats for six years. We’ve built a foundation of trust, operating like a family. However, I must confront a hard truth: we lack diversity. 

 

This admission isn’t just about reflecting on my past leadership; it’s a call to action. We must move beyond comfort and familiarity to embrace the richness that diverse backgrounds and experiences bring. It’s not merely a box-ticking exercise; it’s about enhancing our collective ability to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing market. 

 

If we truly want to lead and inspire, we must be willing to confront our shortcomings and make a concerted effort to cultivate a more inclusive environment. The time for change is now, and I am committed to making it happen.

 

New voices bring:

· Different commercial thinking

· Modern customer insight

· Stronger digital strategy

· Willingness to challenge outdated norms

 

New people ask the questions insiders stop seeing. Yes, sometimes a trusted previous colleague or friend is the best person for the job. But when every hire comes from the same circle? That’s not coincidence.That’s a closed system; and closed systems don’t grow.

 

The future of hospitality won’t be built by protecting comfort. It will be built by leaders brave enough to invite challenge. The strongest boards won’t ask: “Who do I trust?” They’ll ask: “Who will challenge me to be better?”

 

Hospitality doesn’t need more boardroom lunches with the same faces. It needs:

· Braver leadership

· Broader thinking

· Less comfort, more challenge

· Fewer mates, more disruptors

 

Because surrounding yourself with the same isn’t loyalty; it’s fear of change. And fear is really holding this industry back.

Online magazine Pellicle, which I’m lucky to scribble for occasionally, is a fascinating source of writing on the cultures of hospitality. As its title suggests (a pellicle is the weird surface that forms on wild-fermented beer), it began with a focus on drinks. But recently, it’s shifted towards drinking spaces around the world that allow authors to exercise their talents of evocative description.

 

One recent piece, by Anais LeCoq, is about France’s PMU bars. I’d never heard of them, but as LeCoq points out, they’re not for tourists. They are unglamorous gathering points for working people living in poorer neighbourhoods.

 

A PMU is so called because it’s affiliated to Pari Mutuel Urbain, a betting firm, and the common feature of all 14,000 of them is the horse racing. Not only do they show races on screen, but they are also licensed to take bets on site, something that was made illegal in pubs here by the 1963 Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act.

 

Despite that, a close association between pubs and racing can be found in Britain, too. When I started working for the Morning Advertiser in the 1980s, it was a daily newspaper that, like the Sporting Life, carried full racing form (the Racing Post didn’t come along until 1986, and the two titles later merged).

 

The idea was that publicans, after perusing the trade news in the morning, could leave it on the bar for their customers to browse the form and pick their winners (or losers). This happened even after the bookmaking ban. Punters would leave their pints to nip to the betting shop – there was always a Ladbrokes or a Joe Coral’s nearby, it seemed.

 

And it must have given the relationship a boost when, in 1988, pubs were allowed to open all afternoon. A 1995 amendment to the gaming law that allowed refreshments to be served in betting shops was a cause of worry for the trade, which feared it would lure gamblers away from the pub. Perhaps it did, a little bit, but the strong links remain.

 

As I write, the Cheltenham Festival is under way, probably the biggest week in the racing calendar and a lucrative opportunity for pubs. Even up-market, food-led places will lay on special menus and Champagne receptions for the occasion.

 

For many, though, racing is not just for Cheltenham. Meetings are screened every day, and online betting means punters only have to pick up the phone to make a bet. Like the PMUs in France, this is a largely uncelebrated part of the hospitality trade, yet it’s important for more than one reason. 

 

At a time when a lot of pubs are choosing to open later in midweek, if at all on Mondays and Tuesdays, for some wet-led operators, the racing is an anchor that sustains daytime trade. Models such as Stonegate’s expanding Craft Union brand are partly based on racing. Without it, town centres might lose another social space.

 

We should also think of the punters. I must admit that I don’t use racing pubs myself. I don’t like losing, which is the case most of the time when it comes to the horses, and there’s usually a better beer range available elsewhere.

 

But I’ve been getting to know a couple of Craft Union houses in Newham, east London, where I write a column for the local paper, Newham Voices. The racing crowd is a staple of their afternoon trade, mostly older chaps themselves, but as steady regulars, they form the core of a broader variety of customers.

 

These are not the romantic, historic hostelries that commentators mean when they talk of the glories of the British pub, any more than an average tourist in France will consider the PMUs as a valued part of the local culture.

 

But it’s here’s where you find the pub, like the PMU, performing its vital social role – easing loneliness, offering community, friendly faces and conversation to people who would otherwise be stuck home alone in front of the telly, or in the rather grey environment of the betting shop.

 

Some may quibble that gambling and alcohol are not a healthy mix, and there’s truth in that. Yet, in a social setting like this, it feels relatively safe. These people know how much they can afford to lose and are somewhat shielded from the barrage of betting ads that does concern me.

 

They are mostly here for the company, and it’s the horses that bring them together over slow pints and the pages of Racing Post spread between them, filled with obscure codes which, if you could only decipher them, will surely lead you to a winner.

Phil Mellows is a leading industry commentator

The Mall Tavern pub sits at a busy junction in Notting Hill, and on a Friday evening in late February, it had a queue of drinkers around the building waiting for the doors to reopen at 5pm for the pub’s annual two-day Liquid Dreams beer festival.

 

Each member of the queue was personally welcomed into the Victorian pub by the husband-and-wife team, Nati and Andy Perritt, who have been running it for almost 20 years and host the festival because they love their beer and want to support independent breweries. They always have 20-plus lines on their bar, and for the festival weekend, this number increases to 100 beers from 50 breweries that are showcased on temporary bars rigged up in the pub’s basement, upstairs room and compact garden. 

 

The array of beers, sourced from around the globe, was exceptional, but what also made the event such a great experience was the knowledgeable people behind the bars – and most notably, the customers at the festival, who took the lead from the owners and contributed to a wonderfully friendly and convivial event. 

 

It had some of the elements of regular beer festivals that I used to enjoy (mainly good beer), but on a scale that made it much more approachable than the typical affairs held in some cavernous shed or tent with the result that they are invariably cold or hot and, most critically, impersonal. My experience with festivals goes back to an unexpected visit to CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) in the first week of August in 1989, at the Queen’s Hall in Leeds, when I just happened to be in the city for a family day out. 

 

My mother and aunt weren’t too keen on spending more than an hour in there. But not to worry, because many more GBBF visits followed – in Brighton, and predominantly in London (at Earl’s Court and then Olympia). And I’ve ventured to many other smaller regional CAMRA festivals and independent ventures, including London Craft Beer Festival, Brew//LDN, Cloudwater & Friends, various festivals at Beavertown Brewery (including the wonderful Rainbow Project events) and a couple of overseas jaunts to Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen.

 

I’ve had some great times at these events over the years, but the steam seems to have gone out of me and them recently. And it’s not just me it seems, as other people have also lost a bit of interest in festivals. And the business model is under pressure from rising rentals on space to house them. The well-liked IndyManBeerCon festival in Manchester did ten years before calling it a day in 2024, and the recent news that Brew//LDN has been combined this year with the bigger London Wine Fair at Olympia appears to be a retrograde step.

 

The biggest question mark over the future of beer festivals at scale came with the announcement late last year that GBBF has been cancelled for 2026. The move to Birmingham NEC in 2025 was questionable to begin with, because having a festival in a shed in a city centre-ish location is one thing, but putting it in a shed among many other large sheds outside a city centre was maybe not the best idea. The upshot was a setback of such scale – seriously lower-than-expected numbers of visitors led to a loss of £320,000 – that it places the return of GBBF in great doubt.

 

There are still many popular festivals, with the move to more personal, intimately sized affairs being the direction of travel, where the actual venue plays an important role and it is not just about the beer. For instance, Wandsworth Beer Festival at Le Gothique continues to pull people in, and the annual Hop City festival will run again in May at the original home of Northern Monk Brew Co. in Leeds. CAMRA also continues to operate many smaller events around the country in interesting buildings.

 

The ideal home for a festival is surely the pub though. Who can think of a better synergistic creation? This is why many pubs host seasonal festivals, but for some exceptional pubs, such events are integral to their operations. Among them is the continually award-winning The Hope in Carshalton, which hosts a beer festival every month. 

 

There is surely a great opportunity for more pubs to follow the lead of The Hope and The Mall Tavern in making the effort to host beer festivals – even if only on a small scale – and attract some new customers who have lost a bit interest in drinking in featureless sheds but still seek out interesting beers.

Week in, week out, I have conversations with hospitality leaders who are eager to unlock new digital revenue opportunities. From connecting point of service (POS) data to customer relationship management (CRM) via real-time marketing automation, enabling experimentation with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered content, promotions, pricing and forecasting. 

 

This week alone, one leader explained that the absolute biggest headache he has right now is two systems not speaking to each other. If he could just solve that one thing, it would make a world of difference.

 

Over and over again I hear the same thing; the blocker is application programming interface (API) access. It’s not that the APIs are bad; it’s that access to them is either completely restricted, or the costs associated with gaining access to them is prohibitive.

 

I have no doubt about it; this is a fundamental blocker to digital transformation and growth potential for hospitality, a sector that needs that growth right now, more than before.

 

An API is simply a structured way for two pieces of software to communicate. Think of them as the connective tissue between two systems. One system has data in format A, and a second system needs to access that data and pass new data back in the format the first system expects. 

 

An example of APIs at work in hospitality is the Wi-Fi provider sharing email and consent data with the CRM, or the POS sharing sales data with the booking system. 

 

In practice, an “open API” that approved partners can access should be a basic expectation in hospitality technology. It would allow different systems in an operator’s technology stack to integrate and work together rather than in isolation. But not all APIs are equal, broadly speaking. There are two common models.

 

These are tightly controlled by the vendor. Access may require commercial agreements, new subscription fees, approval processes or limited data permissions. Some restrict what data can be accessed, how frequently it can be pulled or which partners can connect.

 

This model protects the system provider from potential competition, but also creates dependency, friction and bottlenecks for operators trying to innovate.

 

Open APIs are publicly documented, accessible and intentionally designed to enable third-party development. Vendors still maintain governance and security, but the philosophy is collaborative rather than defensive. Open does not mean uncontrolled; it means interoperable and open for collaboration. 

When APIs are restrictive, innovation slows. Operators are pushed towards using a bundled platform instead of best-in-class technology for each use case. Generally speaking, this suits well-established legacy technology incumbents.

 

However, when you listen to the industry, it is actively looking at alternatives as it is tired of being restricted by the systems it already uses. New technology vendors struggle to get permission to integrate and, therefore, to offer the solutions an operator has asked for. 

 

As a result, data sits in silos and new use cases are blocked. Closed APIs cap the total value the technology industry can create for operators.

 

Hospitality is not, and cannot, be a single platform world, despite what some vendors hope. The guest journey spans booking engines, POS platforms, CRM systems, loyalty tools, payment gateways, guest feedback, business intelligence dashboards and increasingly AI-driven services.

 

If these systems cannot freely interoperate, the value that can be created between them never compounds and it costs brands real-world revenue. When they do easily integrate, the value multiplies and new use cases can be tried, tested and improved.

 

More connected data leads to better automation, which, in turn, enables smarter personalisation. Smarter personalisation increases revenue and guest satisfaction, and stronger guest satisfaction ultimately drives repeat visits and revenue growth.

 

This is called network effect economics. When systems interconnect, each platform becomes more valuable and stickier because of the others they integrate with. Closed ecosystems limit that effect, while open ecosystems expand it.

 

E-commerce shows this clearly. Platforms such as Shopify provide open APIs that allow thousands of apps to integrate, creating a thriving ecosystem where merchants are choosing the best tools, innovation happens faster and competition relies on excellence, not gatekeeping.

 

1. Better data: When systems share information freely, operators can unify guest profiles across touchpoints. That creates clearer insight into lifetime value, preferences and behaviour – the single customer view everyone is craving.

 

2. Better automation: Real-time triggers become possible, marketing campaigns can be dynamic based on real-time availability in the booking platforms, and promotional activity can be tailored and specific to each individual to ensure margin is maintained, rather than eroded.

 

3. Better AI: AI is only as powerful as the data it can access. Siloed platforms restrict visibility, but interoperable systems allow AI models to draw from broader, richer datasets, improving accuracy and impact.

 

More data creates better automation, smarter AI and more favourable outcomes, which in turn creates more value for operators.

 

The platforms that are easiest to integrate with become hubs that others build with and on. In every rapidly evolving technology ecosystem, integration-friendly platforms gain gravity, developers build on top of them, partners prioritise them and operators favour them, because they reduce friction and allow any new opportunity to be capitalised on quickly.

 

Being closed may feel like it increases stickiness in the short term by keeping out potential competitors, but when your product becomes the connective layer across an ecosystem, you are not easier to replace. You are critical to ongoing success. 

 

Identifying this as a gap in the hospitality landscape isn’t about criticising vendors. Security, compliance and commercial sustainability matter, while data governance is critical. But the industry needs a shift in expectations from its technology providers.

 

Procurement conversations would be great if they included API openness as a core requirement, included in the price of any system. Integration capability should sit alongside functionality, support and price in every buying decision. 

 

Multi-site operators, management companies and industry bodies can collaborate on shared expectations for integration standards and data accessibility. Hospitality is fragmented but coordinated demand changes incentives. If operators demanded openness, everyone in the ecosystem would benefit. Including guests. 

 

Vendors do not need to open everything blindly, but clearer documentation, structured partnership frameworks and freely available integration would reduce friction dramatically. AI is now making the actual integration faster and simpler. There are a host of AI tools that can write an integration from start to finish in under an hour, including tests.

 

If suppliers have open APIs and good documentation, any new integration doesn’t have to go on the roadmap; it can just happen in the background.