Getting Back to Normal

I have a number of friends in their mid to late twenties and in the early stages of their career and I have been a little bemused to hear their repeated concern that they are constantly ‘cash strapped’ and find it difficult to make ends meet. They have good jobs for their life stage and earn a regular salary (certainly more than I did comparatively at their age)Their concern, it seems, is that they can only eat out once or twice a week and they used to be able to eat out far more frequently – they can’t wait until this recession is over.Casting my mind back to when the recession hit, I was in a long held role with a very successful corporate and suddenly overnight everything shifted as we went into overdrive planning our ‘ holding position’ until everything returned to ‘normal’ – a memory held by most I suspect.Business plans and forecasts were worked up and re-worked, marketing went into overdrive gathering market intelligence on how it would impact customer behaviour. The product offer and supply chain also came under scrutiny, not to mention the predictable staffing freeze. Decisions were made based on how people would behave when things started to come out of the recession and we could focus on the things that mattered (whatever that meant).Some 5 years later and phrases widely used by politicians (and the other optimistic parties) follow the same lines – ‘Green shoots of recovery’, ‘a return to pre-recession’, ‘signs of normality’ - but exactly what is meant by these comments.Thinking back to the market intelligence conducted by that marketing team just 6 months into the recession, its message was very clear – consumer habits and behaviours have changed irrevocably.-          People will spend time looking for a bargain and ways to save money – and are proud of it. Websites will flex their offer to support this-          Transparency of cost will be key – remove the frills-          Value is king-          Experiences not possessions that matterSo 5 years down the line I wonder, what does ‘normal’ look like?While we all know that the hospitality industry did suffer badly in the recession, its recovery has depended upon a constant evolution of hospitality concepts. As an industry I think we have worked hard and ensured that we have listened, reacted and adapted so that across the UK there is a breadth of choice, with businesses really having to up the game and think the proposition through in far more holistic ways.  As an industry we should be very proud of how far we have come and how we have been able to reinvent ourselves in such challenging times. However unsettling being taken out of what our norm was, it seems the new ‘norm’ has been built on far stronger foundations.Philippa has worked in the hospitality and travel industry for 20 years, specialising inbrand and concept design, operations and implementation. During that time she has worked for high profile brands including NEXT, House of Fraser, Debenhams, Safeway and the Virgin group. Most recently Philippa was New Product Development Director at Virgin Trains, responsible for scoping the customer experience strategy and ensuring its delivery to support the Virgin Brand umbrella. A creative, customer centric and results driven consultant with a passion for delivering real value at all levels of a business.For more information about EP Evolution please contact Chris Sheppardson, chris.sheppardson@epmagazine.co.uk.