JERSEY should promote itself as more than a destination for weekend breaks, according to one small-guest-house owner.
Richard Romeril, who with his wife, Carolyn, runs La Croix guest house in St Ouen, said that the impression was sometimes created that the Island was looking for the ‘city-break traveller’ whereas Jersey had much more to offer.
‘You’ve got to get the message out there that we are not just a weekend-break place. You really want those four-night stays, especially a place like this. It’s not a weekend-break place, really. You won’t see enough of Jersey to make it a really positive lasting impression. With two nights, your feet barely touch the floor. You really want to have time to get out and walk, and have time to see Jersey at your own speed. That’s why you need a bit of extra time,’ he said.
Mr Romeril, who inherited the six-bedroom guest house from his father, left his job in the finance industry to devote his energy to modernising the property, which now has en-suite facilities for guests in a boutique-style environment. Although it opened midway through the 2022 season, this is his first complete season in the hospitality sector.
He said he was optimistic for the future but also stressed the importance of the Island maintaining sufficient visitor bed stock to sustain the mass necessary for the tourist industry.
‘You’ve got to have a critical number of beds in Jersey to make sure you still keep the flights going in and out,’ he said. ‘I know you’ll always get people exiting the Island on holiday – and we’ve got quite a big population – but it’s never going to fill up in the same way as people coming the other way.
‘And then the tourism promotion and everything else has to match the bed nights. If you keep on losing the traditional hotels that have made up those numbers, it could end up impacting the smaller places too because Jersey won’t be seen as a tourist destination as such, even if you’ve got your own established clientèle.’
