As seen on tv
Our Shepherd’s Huts and The Hub Cafe were featured on The Hotel Inspector To The Rescue in May 2024 on Channel 5.
The series sees renowned hotelier and business woman Alex Polizzi, work closely with hospitality enterprise owners, like my husband a me, to inject new ideas and boost their business after the challenges of Covid.
During October 2023, Alex Polizzi and the TV production team for The Hotel Inspector spent 12 days with us at The Original Hut Company in Bodiam, East Sussex.
We started with an initial meeting and then Alex delivered her vision for how we could improve our Shepherd’s Hut offering. It was then all hands on deck to make the changes and get the filming of the transformation completed.
The Hotel Inspector
We received a call about being involved in The Hotel Inspector programme and thought it would be really interesting to get an industry expert’s viewpoint.
Alex Polizzi is very genuine. She stayed here in a Shepherd’s Hut to truly understand our eco-stay experience – and said it was very comfortable.
It was great to get her insights on all things hospitality to improve our operations.
We also really valued her perspective and practical advice on finances and, importantly, how to balance running our business alongside family life.
Alex Polizzi is not just The Hotel Inspector, she is a busy working mum too.
We now have the confidence to close from the end of October through to March each year, to have more time with our children. There is still plenty to do in school hours with the upkeep of the land.
One of Alex’s suggestions for improvements was to build little porches on each Shepherd’s Hut.
Nick got busy building these by hand with sustainable materials.
We loved this idea – and they are the perfect spot for muddy wellies!
Signage & Menus
Alex’s pointed out that we really needed to improve the signage for The Original Hut Company, as well as letting The Hub customers know that there is an eco-stay and camping site right by the cafe, plus what makes us special and different.
So we set to work on new signs at the roadside, across the site, and even a humorous sign in the Shepherd’s Huts toilets!
We added new messaging to our Hub menus and table signs, and created a new Shepherd’s Hut information pack.
Visitors can now quickly understand our strong sustainability credentials and our passion for rewilding and rejuvenating the ancient protected woodland. And that we offer an authentic eco-stay.
It’s not a fad or a nod towards it in some parts of our campsite. It’s central throughout everything we do.
We provide an opportunity for you to unplug for a while and get back to nature – blending relaxation and fun with minimal environmental impact.
With the tight filming schedule for The Hotel Inspector, we needed help to get these communications tasks achieved. So the show producer introduced us to Emma Pearce from a local marketing agency, Pearce Marketing. We had great fun working together and got everything produced for Alex in time – phew!
Our aim is to carry on working with Emma to ensure our marketing strategy and implementation is in good shape.