Future Inns & Welsh Cycling
Future Inns in the UK were founded, by Bruce, Marilyn, and Del Brett. Their Cardiff hotel opened in 2005, followed by Plymouth in 2006 and Bristol in 2009. They follow the template of the commercially successful and popular Future Inns in Halifax, Canada, which opened in 1989.
The Brief
An established and successful hotel, based in the heart of Cardiff Bay, Future Inns nevertheless is operating in a competitive marketplace and needed to stand out from the crowd.
What We Did
Yogi created a concept to actively position Future Inns as Cardiff’s first cycle-friendly hotel, to take advantage of the massive growth in cycling and the Welsh capital city’s growing reputation as a cycling city.
This included using our connections with our clients, cycle storage experts Odoni Elwell, to create a bespoke cycle parking station based on the Future Inns logo.
The partnership grew and extended to hosting a Cardiff Cycling Conference with guest speakers, Wales’ first Bradley Wiggins photographic exhibition, and hosting the Cardiff Triathlon.
This campaign established our client at front and centre of the Cardiff cycling revolution, introducing it to many more organisations, as well as sporting and family cyclists. It also provided a wealth of marketing and promotional opportunities to generate increased business and bookings for the hotel.
Results
During the campaign launch, Yogi secured coverage for the client across a broad media platform. These included radio interviews with BBC Wales Radio and Radio Cardiff, features published in The Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Hotel Business magazine (and online) as well as a variety of bike and cycle-related publications. Made in Cardiff also filmed a programme from the hotel which was featured on their news show.
Yogi managed the social media platform for Future Inns and throughout this particular campaign, we increased activity by 18% with increased followers to the Facebook page and 21% on Twitter. Increased sales were also recorded following this campaign and more cyclists visited the hotel for food, drink, and stays.
