Stay in a Pub

Idea

Introduction

Alongside food and drink, accommodation is an important income stream for pubs. There are an estimated 6,000+ pubs with rooms in the UK but they operate in a highly fragmented market and often lack online presence.

Brainchild of Cask Marque MD, Paul Nunny, Stay in a Pub is an online platform dedicated to matching pubs and guests. We believe we are the largest source of directly bookable pub only accommodation in the UK. The site features over 1,300 quality pubs and the B2B2C business is based on a blended membership fee / commission model.

The pub accomodation market is worth in the region of £800m pa. and key target audiences extend beyond traditional 55+ short breakers to include family holidaymakers and 25-34 year olds looking for experiential stays.

We are seeking investment to expand our tech-led distribution, grow our collection of pubs and enhance our customer acquisition strategy.

If you’re someone who appreciates a more authentic way to stay, join our community founded on passion, built on loyalty, protecting and promoting the great British pub one room at a time.

Substantial accomplishments to date

A successful Angel investment round in 2019, raised £745k enabling the development of a content-rich, mobile-first website with cutting-edge search functionality, optimised UX and an integrated booking engine.

After a year of enforced pub closures, we launched our new website publicly in April 21 and achievements to date include:

· Enhanced geographical coverage with an estimated 16% of all pubs with rooms in the UK listed (1,300 pubs)

· Partnerships with 24 major pub groups inc. Wetherspoon, Fullers, Youngs and Greene King

· Loyal following of 377 Full Member pubs paying an annual fee for enhanced service as well as commission

· A database of over 6,200 pubs with rooms

· Valuable endorsements from Visit Britain, The Outdoor Guide, Paws Across Britain and several travel and lifestyle influencers

· Media coverage inc. Daily Mail Online (October 21), Guardian (July 21), Independent (March 21), Yorkshire Times (April 21) and numerous regionals

· Ranked on page one of Google's search results for 1,300 key terms

· Increased web traffic by 82% to an average 50,000 user sessions pcm

· Doubled social media followers and email subscribers to 59,000

· 21% sales growth versus previous year (£79k revenue and -£174k EBITDA) despite the pandemic sector disruption*

· Over 1,100 bookings, 3,500 guest nights and £210,000 gross booking revenue over the summer

· Ownership of both the stayinapub.co.uk and .com domain names

*Based on unaudited management accounts.

Monetisation strategy

A blended B2B2C model where revenue is generated from annual membership fees (£195 pa) and commission on bookings made (8-10%), both paid by the pub. We offer pubs the choice of Full Membership with enhanced service and support or a simple commission-only price plan.

Over 600 pubs are currently connected to our booking engine, and a further 567 are connected to Booking.com where we earn 4.5% affiliate commission share. There are a limited number of non-bookable pubs generating membership fees only.

Our aim is to increase the number of directly bookable pubs earning commission and to increase membership fee over time as we prove our ability to generate bookings through customer aquisition, conversion and loyalty.

The key growth drivers for bookings and associated commission revenue are improved brand awareness and SEO, web traffic growth (100,000 pcm), 'Look-to-Book' or conversion rate (target 1.5%), booking value (av £220) and repeat buinsess.

Use of proceeds

We have a strong proposition and scalable business model. Our focus now is on B2C marketing and customer acquisition. The proceeds of this fundraise will support the business though to a cashflow positive position in 2023/4, and enable us to:

- Ramp up marketing activity with brand awareness, engagment and conversion objectives to include search engine optimisation, content marketing, PPC and online display advertising, social media, email, loyalty programmes and conversion strategies; 70%

- Further develop our website technology, improve functionality and enhance content and user experience (UX); 10%

- Improve our B2B sales strategy to increase both the number of members and overall number of pubs connected to our booking system; 10%

- Support working capital (salaries, office expenditure, IT infrastructure etc): 10%

Existing shareholders are supportive of our fundraising, the directors are investing a further £50,000 and we have Advance Assurance of EIS eligibility from HMRC.