Winning both the RAC Credit to the Industry award and the AA Hotel Group of the Year award is quite a vindication for a family of hotels that started life as the accidental offspring of a Fulham-based building firm and proved something of a late developer.
The group was started in 1938, when builder WJ Marston, set up in 1895 by two brothers, was converting four derelict coastguard cottages into flats in Hythe, Kent, a favourite family holiday resort. Halfway through they decided to include some letting accommodation and, by the 1960s, Stade Court was a fully functioning hotel.
It gained two post-war siblings, in 1947 and 1973. First, WJ Marston snapped up the nearby Hotel Imperial for £24,000 after it was released from occupation by the War Office, and then the company built the Hogarth hotel on a bomb site in Kensington, London. The Hogarth, sold last November, is the only hotel the group has ever relinquished.
However, the hotels remained something of a sideline. In fact, by the early 1980s they were badly-performing "problem kids" and the Marstons were seriously thinking about bailing out of the hotel business.
Everything changed in 1982 with the arrival of current chairman and managing director Chris Scragg for what he originally planned to be a two-year stint as general manager of the Hythe Imperial.
After steering the Hythe Imperial into profitability, Scragg decided he needed a new challenge and brought another Kent hotel, Bridgewood Manor, into the Marston group. In 1990 he became the head of a new subsidiary, Marston Hotels.
"For the first time, we brought the hotels together under a group umbrella," Scragg says. "Before, they operated as separate limited companies and the managers hardly spoke to each other."
The newly united, and growing, family of hotels finally flew the parental nest last year, demerging from WJ Marston to become a stand-alone company. It celebrated with a spending spree that added the Stratford Victoria, Chester Crabwall Manor, Winchester Royal and Hellidon Lakes hotels to the fold.
Based in the grounds of the Hythe Imperial, Marston Hotels now runs 15 three- and four-star hotels in England, including one management contract. They range from historic to contemporary properties in rural, town centre and resort locations. The largest is the Oxford Belfry with 130 bedrooms, the smallest the 35-bedroom Coulsdon Manor hotel in Surrey.
In these difficult times, the group has achieved occupancy of 60% and still increased room rates by 3%, although Scragg is concerned that heavy discounting in and around London may drag the industry down.
Most of its trade - about 85% - is domestic. Conferences account for 32% of business, followed by leisure breaks (30%) and corporate business (27%). Corporate guests can choose from 14 locations with conference and meeting facilities or engage in team-building exercises at nine hotels or the group's own wood in Kent.
For the sportsman, 10 hotels offer leisure clubs, four have golf courses, and four have outdoor tennis courts. More sedate options include beauty studios in eight hotels, and painting, bridge or spiritual awareness breaks.
Scragg's ambition is to run 20 four-star properties within two to three years, and he is not far from his goal. Ten of the 15 hotels are already four-star-rated and Scragg expects extensive revamps to win fourth stars for the Hampshire Centrecourt, Aldwark Manor and Lansdown Grove hotels this year. Plans are afoot to add two four-star new-builds to the portfolio next year.
One of the benefits of private ownership is the ability to set your own spending agenda and make quick decisions as opportunities arise. "There is no City pressure affecting our decisions; we have taken a long-term view of what we are about," Scragg explains. "We try to continue to invest in our people and in our hotels."
This approach helped to win the group its RAC and AA accolades last year, plus fourth stars for both the Chester Crabwall Manor and Tankersley Manor hotels.
On top of the £1m-£2m spent annually on routine maintenance, the group is continuously refining its portfolio. Last year saw the completion of a £7m revamp of the Hellidon Lakes hotel - which included 42 new bedrooms - and the start of a £6m overhaul of the Hampshire Centrecourt, which has already gained 40 new bedrooms and four new outdoor tennis courts, claimed to be the first in the UK to use rapid-draining soft French clay.
Additions, enhancements and refurbishments started last year at Lansdown Grove, Winchester Royal, Tankersley Manor and Aldwark Manor will continue this year, and Stratford Manor will also undergo a refit.
Professing "fairly traditional" views, Scragg prefers to keep things in the family. "We like to own the majority of our properties. There are long-term gains from having freeholds - once you have sold the family silver, it has gone," he says, adding: "We try to do everything we can in-house."
So new trends such as outsourcing and sale-and-leaseback deals find no foothold at Marston Hotels. Nevertheless, the two planned new-builds represent a slight departure from this norm, as they will be leaseholds (with an option to buy) developed in partnership with Buckinghamshire-based Status Property Group. But Scragg says this will not necessarily set a future pattern.
Work has begun on a £16m, 120-bedroom hotel in Cambridge, and the group hopes to win planning permission for a £22m, 150-bedroom property in Nottingham.
The group has just changed its banker for the first time in a £100m financing deal with the Royal Bank of Scotland that includes a £30m fund for new acquisitions (refurbishments are funded from trading cash flow).
Scragg is actively looking for new hotels of 50-150 bedrooms with conference and leisure facilities (or the ability to add them), particularly in the M4 valley and near the top side of the M25. While he is in acquisitive mood, Scragg has no ambitions to expand overseas. The group has stretched north to Chester and York, and Scotland remains the most distant outpost within his sights.
Who's who?
Chris Scragg: chairman and managing director
John Cotter: director of sales and marketing
Mark Kingston: finance director
Gail Callaway: operations director
Anne Marston: director, interior design
John Marston: director
A winning year
Citations for Marston Hotels
* RACCredit to the Industry Award
"This award is given to the small independent group of hotels which has set new standards of excellence, going the extra mile to give its customers an unbeatable stay. In a difficult year for hoteliers everywhere, it has not only added several new hotels to the group, but has also improved the quality of its customers' stay at every one."
* AA Hotel Group of the Year Award 2002-03
"This award reflects the hotel group which has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to improving and developing its portfolio of hotels, while maintaining a high level of consistency throughout the group."
* English Tourism Council four-star gold awards for the Chester Crabwell Manor hotel and Eastwell Manor hotel.
Vital statistics
Hotels: 15
Bedrooms: 1,178
Staff: more than 1,000
Annual results to March 2002: turnover, £43m; pre-tax profits, £9.9m; revenue per available room, £52
Gearing (ratio of debt to equity): about 50%
Ownership: 15 Marston family members own about 80% of the company; four company directors also have a stake
Owned four-star hotels
Bridgewood Manor, Chatham, Kent
Chester Crabwall Manor, Cheshire
Coulsdon Manor, Surrey
Hellidon Lakes, Daventry, Northamptonshire
Hythe Imperial, Hythe, Kent
Oxford Belfry, Thame, Oxfordshire
Stratford Victoria and Stratford Manor, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Tankersley Manor, Barnsley, South Yorkshire
Owned three-star hotels
Aldwark Manor, North Yorkshire
Hampshire Centrecourt, Basingstoke, Hampshire
Lansdown Grove, Bath
Stade Court, Hythe, Kent
Winchester Royal, Hampshire
Managed hotels
Eastwell Manor, Ashford, Kent