CEO REPORT APRIL Summary 1. April was the most challenging trading month we have had for some time. May trading is looking much more positive with the improved weather. Exec attention has been focused on the May Board, preparing for the structural changes associated with the departure of Joe Lynch, Commercial Director, from YHA, and the forthcoming AGM and related governance changes. Trading, financial and operating performance 2. March and April were not the start we were looking for, with the combination of the beast from the east, an early Easter, and soft trading in London putting us back to 2016 revenue levels. However we are reassured by strong last minute demand in all areas and are confident of reaching our revenue budgets for May and June. 3. Trading cash levels are consequently currently below budget and last year s levels but we will be seeking to bring this back on line by the end of the year. We will be keeping a close eye on progress over the summer. A paper reviewing the position over the summer and our trading strategy going forward will go to the September Board meeting. 4. Our new website is now live and trading well. Customers are reacting positively to the new design and layout and we have seen a positive increase in the conversion rate of the site. More detail is included later in this report. Our thanks to the team for a huge effort in order to deliver this project without interruption or impact to our business. Guest satisfaction 5. ReviewPro (3rd party bookings bookings.com et al) guest satisfaction for April continued to index above last year, while TLF (post stay questionnaires) stayed broadly steady at 91.5%. On ReviewPro, growth was seen in all areas, but with comments on room delivering the lowest overall scores. 6. London has generated the lowest overall scores on both ReviewPro and TLF Guest Satisfaction and in particular around room, prompting Project London, an initiative to focus time and attention on the customer visible maintenance and actions plans, from which we expect to see a significant improvement in the presentation of rooms and the hostels overall. 7. We were pleased to see a jump in meal satisfaction last month to the highest levels in over a year, reflecting the continued focus on improving the YHA F&B offer with the new contractor. In relation to Groups, in April YHA received 45
surveys back within which Food and Beverage, at 87%, was +0.3% ahead of March and +2.7% ahead of February. 8. Graphical summaries of both sets of F+I survey scores are below: ReviewPro TLF (questionnaires sent to customers after their stay)
Capital projects 9. At YHA London Stratfordwe have now commissioned the next phase of due diligence. Progress will be reviewed by the Performance and Audit Committee (PAC) at the end of June before a decision is made to move to the next phase of work. I have written to Lyn Garner, the new CEO of the local planning authority, London Legacy Development Corporation, to set up a meeting to discuss the project and potential benefits and links to their wider work. 10. With the main house completed at YHA Bath the focus is on the new annex. The rear access road is completed enabling the piling of the foundations to commence. The planning conditions are all on track and we hope to finalise the final selection of window design shortly. We continue to target re-opening the annex in November. 11. The refurbishment at YHA Perranporth has been competed to budget and programme and is now open to guests. The works have transformed this small hostel and we look forward to receiving our customers feedback. Events and partnerships 12. I have updated the plan with the latest position. Date Event Attending Originally 19th December 2017 but postponed on the day still to be re-arranged Peak District hostel tour with Ruth George MP for the High Peak May/June 2018 still to be confirmed June 2018 exact date still to be confirmed but must be by end of June Meeting with LD health spokesperson Norman Lamb MP on our new charitable focus Closed APPG AGM with John Mann MP, possibly other APPG officers 29 th /30 th June 2018 VIP reception and AGM, YHA St Pancras/RCGP, London 3 rd July 2018, 11-1 YHA Swanage re-opening event; Facebook Live Q&A to include school children 15 th July 2018 YHA St Paul s 50 th anniversary celebration being led by Tom Levitt, ex Labour MP for High Peak and former staff member at St Paul s Margaret and James attending; we are still liaising with her office to agree a suitable date Peter and James to attend; meeting will now take place in Parliament we are continuing to liaise with his office; NL may attend APPG AGM (see below) James/Peter will be invited; Sam Littlechilds (as APPG administrator) attending Board members, Exec team, invited guests All Board members welcome Informal gathering of former staff contact Sam Littlechilds for further information
Date Event Attending 20th August 2018 Tour of Peaks hostels with Peter and James to attend Patrick McLoughlin 6 th September 2018 Joint Youth Hostelling/ Mountaineering APPG meeting & walking event (MPs from both groups) at YHA Dartmoor Sam L and James joining walk; Board members welcome Winter 2018 date to be confirmed, depends on progress of annex YHA Bath re-opening event All Board members welcome 13. A large focus over the last month has been on PAC and Board meeting preparation and Director recruitment/interim arrangements. Other external meetings since the last briefing have included: Emyr Williams, CEO, and Owain Wyn, Chair, of Snowdonia National Park Authority, with Peter, Margaret and Jake at YHA Bryn Gwynant. The National Park gave us an insight into the funding environment (controlled significantly by the Welsh Government) and planning,. They were also keen to discuss the potential for working in partnership with us in other areas, including outdoor education and the new Snowdon Partnership Plan. Jerry Robinson, Operations and People Director, Andy Barnett, Senior Operations Manager and I went back to Leeds Beckett University to sign a renewed Memorandum of Understanding with the Vice-Chancellor relating to our partnership with Carnegie Great Outdoors. We are working with them on activity provision across the North, various impact projects and they send their first year students to our hostels for bonding weekends, aimed at minimising university drop out. At the invitation of the CEO I attended a Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) stakeholder dinner in National Forest, attended by various other CEOs and Board members of environmental or outdoors organisations. As part of work to take forward the external stakeholder strategy I have met again with Emma Boggis, CEO of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, and Andrew Denton, CEO of the Outdoor Industries Association, to feed back on recent work on our charitable focus and to get their feedback on the current policy and political environment and potential priority contacts.
Reach and impact 14. The latest year to date slide on our impact is below. 15. The number of U26s staying overnight is up by 1.5% year on year which is encouraging given the difficult start to the year overall, as reported above. Also above last year is the number of young employees and volunteers. 16. The remaining categories are lower than last year. There has been a hitch with the reporting of some of the topline reach figures from the website due to the platform relaunch that will be rectified next month, and we are confident that the numbers will be higher than last year s. In the case of challenging lives, this reflects the changes to the processing of applications for support from our Breaks programmes so, for instance, the current application window is open until 1 st June 2018 with no applications being assessed until the closing date which means there will continue to be monthly gaps when no new young people are added to the cumulative total. 17. Our Breaks programmes have supported 829 young people to access a residential educational break programmes, and a further 66 families (182 young people, and 240 family members in total) who have not experienced a holiday or short break will enjoy a two night break with us. 4% have experienced homelessness/living in temporary accommodation, 20% are young carers for a
parent of a sibling, 25% have a disability or life limiting condition (this group includes people with mental health problems). External communications 18. Crackit Productions North, an independent TV production company based in Manchester, are currently making a series for Channel 5 that follows the lives of children living in tower blocks. The series aims to give a sensitive insight into children from around the UK who live in one community, but are from different social and ethnic backgrounds, giving them a voice and showcasing their various struggles and their hopes and aspirations for the future. The series will be very warm in tone and a positive look at life growing up. As part of the series the children will be filmed staying at YHA Whitby during the week of 21 st May as yet we don t know when it is being aired. Internal communications 19. In support of Mental Health Awareness Week (from 14 th May), we have been running a number of activities both in National Office and in the network: a Virtual Walk (eight teams from across the network and one from National Office competing to virtually walk from top to bottom of our hostel network, starting at YHA Berwick and finishing at YHA Land s End!, the Corporate Games (in conjunction with Active Workplace Derbyshire), and two Mindfulness sessions at National Office (again in conjunction with Active Workplace Derbyshire). I attended one of the mindfulness sessions, which were a trial and if proven successful we anticipate a full roll out to the network once we have secured other partners to support us. There has been strong support from staff our renewed focus on positive mental health internally as well as in our external charitable work. Website 20. Migration to the new website platform has been extremely successful, with Phase 1 of the project completed to schedule with very few issues. Conversion rate (the proportion of people who made a booking as part of their visit to the site) in the first week of launch was up 3.5% compared to the same period last year on the old site. Traffic to the new site remains strong during the migration period. Google appears to be viewing the changes favourably which should result in more traffic from related user searches in future. 21. The launch was phased over a three week period to manage risk and protect trading. The first two weeks included a trial to 10% of users which gave us the data and confidence to migrate 100% of users to the new site on 8th May. A week later once the new site was stabilised, user login and membership purchases were activated. We sold twice as many memberships (44) online compared to a normal day on the old site. Approximately 40% of users are now
choosing to login (as opposed to 6% on the old site). Logged-in users form a core part of our Book Direct, personalised communications, and wider digital vision moving forward so this shift is very encouraging. People choosing to make a donation as part of their booking has also improved on the new site, with online checkout gifts up 100% compared to the same period last year on the old site. 22. Very few issues have been raised by customers, apart from a small number who expressed the wish to view a full month of availability in one window as opposed to just a 10 day view. This will be looked at in the coming weeks which we hope will satisfy those requests. 23. We have completed our cross office project to ensure we are compliant with the new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Communities 24. Income from legacies and donations continues, in both cases, to be ahead of budget for the year to date, and the Communities team has also secured an additional 32,624 of grant funding to support coastal erosion works undertaken at YHA Boggle Hole. 25. At the end of April, the team held a 'Wonder of Wales' event at YHA Pen-y-Pass with a tour of YHA Bryn Gwynant for invited members, former members, stayers and donors, to update them on YHA s work and ambitions for Wales, sharing our plans and support methods. As part of the event we were joined by our mountain safety partners Mountain Rescue who provided an informative talk. As an initial result of the event we gained two legacy pledges, several new regular givers, renewals of lapsed memberships, new members, one off donations, and also identified some potentially strong corporate leads to support projects in Wales. There are a number of similar cultivation events planned in the next couple of months, including at YHAs Whitby and Boggle Hole, YHA The Sill and at YHA Ironbridge Coalport. Unfortunately, due to power and water failures, the event at YHA Ilam Hall which should have been held on 14th May had to be postponed to later in the year. Operations and people 26. We bid a fond farewell to Joe Lynch on 25 th May, with a cross office presentation followed by drinks and a meal in Matlock. Joe was held in high regard by staff at all levels in the organisation. While sad to see him go, colleagues are looking forward to the opportunities provided by the new senior structure.
27. The recruitment process for the new Director role is now well under way and we expect to be advertising the role in early June. Margaret Hart, Vice Chair, will be the Board representative on the recruitment panel. 28. The YHA Awards held at YHA Cardiff were once again a great success showcasing the excellent work of so many of our colleagues. Hostel Manager of the Year was James Wilkinson from YHA New Forest, reflecting the work of James and the team over the last five years to take this from a poorly run hostel to one of the stars in the network. Employee of the Year was Nadia Torres, Hostel Manager at YHA London Central, for role modelling the Hostel Manager role and managing a busy city hostel. The CEO Award recognised the excellent work of Sharn Harrison, Head of Business Systems. And finally 29. I have had another busy month of hostel visits. On the way to visit all of our Snowdonia hostels I called in at YHA Danywenallt in the Brecon Beacons, and YHA Kington and Leominster in Herefordshire and Shropshire, before joining Peter in award winning YHA Liverpool. 30. And this week following an Exec meeting in YHA Malham I took the opportunity to visit YHA Hawes (where I met the new Enterprise Leaseholder), YHA Kettlewell (a thriving YHA Enterprise with network leading standards), YHA Slaidburn and YHA Mankinholes. Total now stands at 85