Wow, doesn’t time just fly! It’s great to have spring finally here and all those Thames Valley floods especially here at Wraysbury are but a distant memory. That said, there are still local homeowners in temporary accommodation and our thoughts go out to them. Our HQ here at Wraysbury Hall survived the floods thanks to those canny Victorians who clearly new where to position a building in a centuries old flood plain.
Here at Clarendon we’ve delivered to plan again last quarter which followed on from our busiest ever year end shoulder period. We must be doing something right!
So, what have we been up to then?
With our owned property, we’ve continued full-on with our refurbishment programmes at Richmond Park and here at Wraysbury Hall, plus added a few nice touches to our flagship property at Kew Gardens. With managed properties, we successfully built up occupancy at West Street on Cambridge Circus close to Seven Dials and Leicester Square. What a vibrant area this is and within a stone’s throw of Covent Garden too! Ten minutes walk across Charing Cross Road, our new locations in Old Compton Street and Berwick Street got off the ground in Soho. Lots of long stays too! What an area Soho is! Such variety and choice. Entertainment, food, drink, shopping, you name it, it’s all here and with Oxford Street right there on the doorstep. We launched at Ealing Broadway and expanded our growing portfolio in Canary Wharf.
We’ve been travelling too. At the end of February, Peter and Scott attended the Corporate Housing Providers Association annual conference in New Orleans. The objective was to get a hands-on feel for what’s brewing in our sector States-side. Very educational, great sessions and great food! What a town!
On the systems front, we’ve taken the strategic decision to invest in a next generation IT platform for the Clarendon business. The objective is to get the whole Clarendon business integrated on one platform. This quarter saw consultants from Fifosys coming in-house to define our business processes and consider how best to improve and optimise them before getting on next quarter with specifying in detail the platform’s features and capabilities. Big, big steps for little old Clarendon as we tool up for the coming 3-5 years.
Coming up, April sees Teresa and Adam attend the EuRa conference in Edinburgh and in early May, Peter and Adam fly out to exhibit at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
It’s full steam ahead for Clarendon in what is shaping up to be an exciting year!