When two Northumbria Graduates met on their first day
starting new jobs in the University’s marketing department, and left to go
travelling two years later, the idea for creative marketing company Stay The
Night was born. Rosie Willan and Charlotte Hall were working in a boutique
hostel in South Africa, when they realised there were no marketing agencies
specialising marketing for hostels.
Two years ago, after returning from their travels, the two graduates
enlisted the help of Northumbria’s Student and Graduate Enterprise service.
With their help they began to build their hostel marketing business, which has
since expanded its client base to work with hotels, co-living spaces, and other
hospitality businesses.
Rosie Willan spoke of the support they received from the
Student and Graduate Enterprise team in the early stages of their business
journey,
“The
Student and Graduate Enterprise Team have been such an amazing support, right
from setting up the business to today.
“At the start, they helped us with registering the
business and with the legal advice we needed to get started. They also put us
in touch with specialist mentors at every stage of our business journey and are
always on hand for advice when we need it.
“The whole team goes above and beyond for the
students and graduates they work with and we really couldn’t recommend their
support enough.”
With the foundations of the business in place, the
young entrepreneurs have successfully expanded their client base to work with
hospitality businesses in a number of countries, from Scotland to South Africa,
whilst also expanding the team, hiring five new team members since launching
the company.
As the company was set up as a remote agency, the
two marketers found they have had less trouble adjusting to homeworking
as the COVID pandemic has brought for many businesses,
“We’ve had less issues adapting to the challenges
COVID has brought due to the fact we’ve always been a remote agency, meaning
our team is location independent and meetings have often been virtual.” said
Rosie.
As well as the company now specialising in working
with hybrid hospitality brands, co-living spaces, hostels and hotels, they have
also produced resources for their industry including an eBook named The
Staycation Marketing Guide; which has the aim of helping businesses capture
domestic demand.
The two travel lovers have plans to grow the
business, but their focus currently is to build a strong international team,
“‘We planning to hire both here in the UK and in
our key target markets overseas. We want to continue to grow our reputation as
one of the leading marketing agencies in the hospitality sector.”
Rosie and Charlotte, alongside two industry
partners launched ‘Adopt a Hostel,’ a campaign which encouraged travellers to
purchase gift cards for future stays at hostels of their choice, or to make a
donation to help hostels survive through the Covid-19 pandemic. Over 300
hostels worldwide joined the scheme and over 100,000 was raised for the
businesses involved.
With the ambition to continue to grow their
business, the founders have access to Northumbria’s Student and Graduate
Enterprise team through the recently launched Northumbria Enterprise and
Business Support 2 (NEBS) programme. This programme will match them up with an
experienced member of staff to help them develop their company further.
To find out more about their business visit www.staythenight.net.
If you have a business or freelance idea or have already
began trading, speak to the Student and Graduate Enterprise team to access the
free support services available to Northumbria Students and recent Graduates by
visiting www.northumbria.ac.uk/sgenterprise.
