Telling an authentic brand story with Robin Hutson, chairman of The Pig hotels

How important is branding to an establishment? And how, alongside supporting sustainability and championing local businesses, does it culminate in one country house hotel?

WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi finds out from travel trailblazer Robin Hutson; OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), chairman of The Pig and the UK’s second most powerful hotelier (as ranked by trade magazine The Caterer).

If you’ve been lucky enough to visit any of his destinations that dot the south of England, you’ll know these boutique retreats are famous for amazing food and gorgeous interiors, but there’s a lot more to their success than just what they look like.

Tune in to discover how a more casual approach to service in this group of boutique hotels naturally aligns with the attitudes and diversity of the British psyche, eventually becoming a point of difference that represents The Pig.

Lifestyle-driven brand story

“The style of service that we try to deliver, which is a slightly more relaxed, friendly service, actually goes quite well with the British psyche. The more formal, highly skilled, specialist style of service of yesteryear was, perhaps, much more in tune with countries that had very strong craft values, like Italy and France and so on.”

Championing local businesses

“If you start with the intent, the head chefs who are responsible for a lot of the sourcing – they get quite a kick out of finding a new artisan producer, supplier, creator of different foodstuffs. Of course, we have been champions of the English wine scene for a long time. We started suppressing champagne in favour of English sparkling wine back in 2014.”

“There’s no doubt that the product is absolutely on par with champagne and if we feel that we can be supporting great enterprises in this country at the same time as serving great products, then why would you do anything else?”
– Robin Hutson, chairman, The Pig

To hear the full discussion tune into episode 58 of our Create Tomorrow podcast, A New Heyday of the Country House Hotel with The Pig Chairman Robin Hutson, on Anchor, Apple and Spotify.