‘We were able to pay our creditors’
CASE STUDY THE SEREN COLLECTION
WITH PLANS for a new spa at his five-star hotel, a Michelin-star chef in his restaurant and the launch of a tour operator business underway, Neil Kedward was looking forward to a good year in 2020.
But when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the managing director of Wales-based The Seren Collection required urgent assistance from the UK Government’s support schemes to pay his creditors and maintain supplier relationships.
Mr Kedward and his wife Zoe entered the hospitality industry almost by accident in 2007.
He said: “We just happened to come home to South Wales for the weekend and stumbled across The Grove. It was a calamitous trip with lots of wrong turns and family arguments, but we found the owner in, made our offer and that was that.
“Our aspiration was much smaller than that, in fact we just wanted to convert the six outlying buildings into self catering units – now we’re a 25 bedroom hotel.”
Neil and Zoe went on to open two restaurants in Saundersfoot and Oxwich on the back of the success of The Grove.
As if that weren’t enough to keep the team busy, he also spotted a gap in the tour operator market.
Neil said: It struck me that there weren’t enough tour operators bringing people into the country. So we started a business called routescape.com, which had a hugely encouraging start, launching at World Travel Market before a big business development trip in 2019. We had built up all our bookings for this financial year.
“And then of course the whole project was wiped out by the virus. We lost every single booking. Not just for Routescape, but for The Grove too.”
Neil added: “The loan from the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme has allowed us to pay off all our creditors and we will be able to relaunch owing nobody any money.