Building a Better Hospitality Sector Through Talent, Innovation, and Strategic CSR

The hospitality sector employs over 35,000 people across York and North Yorkshire alone. It’s the third-largest employer in the UK, supports 54,000 jobs across Yorkshire, and welcomed 73 million visitors to the region in 2024.

Yet the industry faces a shortfall of around 188,000 workers, with one of the highest turnover rates at approximately 30% annually.

But what does meaningful corporate social responsibility actually look like in hospitality?
The answer wasn’t writing cheques or ticking boxes, but rather rolling up our sleeves and working alongside industry partners to address the sector’s most urgent challenge: talent.

Why We Partnered with Hospitality Live and the Hospitality Junior Board (HJB)

Our CSR strategy centres on one belief: the hospitality sector deserves better. Better infrastructure, better opportunities, and better pathways for the people who power it.
That’s why we’ve committed our expertise, time, and resources to supporting two major initiatives: Hospitality Live and the Hospitality Junior Board (HJB).

Both organisations share our conviction that hospitality isn’t just a job, but a career path that deserves the same respect, development opportunities, and strategic investment as any other sector.

Hospitality Live reimagines how the industry connects, and we helped bring the inaugural event to life at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, where over 300 professionals and 40 venue and supplier partners gathered for something genuinely different.

The Hospitality Junior Board builds career pathways for young people, and we’ve provided ongoing marketing, PR, and administrative support to help them deliver programmes that create real opportunities, not just awareness campaigns.

Hospitality Live: Rethinking How the Industry Connects

Trade shows have a problem: they’re predictable, transactional, and forgettable.

Louise Wright, our Commercial Director and one of Hospitality Live’s co-founders, put it plainly: “Having spent over 20 years in the hotel industry, it’s fair to say many trade shows start to feel the same: predictable formats, fleeting surface-level conversations, and very little that truly sticks. As hospitality professionals, we deserve better.”

So we stripped it back, removing exhibition stands and rigid formats in favour of open spaces designed for quality conversations, a daytime programme featuring industry speakers, and an evening of street food, drinks, and live music.

The event included a standout session from Andy Williamson, Founder of Welcome Brain, on neuroinclusion in events, demonstrating how small, practical adjustments can make a real difference.

The result? An estimated 1,000 conversations took place throughout the day, with one delegate capturing it perfectly: “The real value, as ever, was in the conversations. New connections made, familiar faces caught up with, and some really useful discussions… exactly the kind of day networking should deliver.”

Enquiries for the 2027 event are already coming in, as Hospitality Live has established itself as a fixture in Yorkshire’s business calendar, and we’re proud to have helped make it happen.

The Hospitality Junior Board: Creating Pathways, Not Just Programmes

The Hospitality Junior Board doesn’t run awareness campaigns; they build infrastructure.
In March 2026, they delivered two back-to-back initiatives that demonstrated what strategic investment in young talent actually looks like.

Hospitality: The Leaders of Tomorrow

More than 130 young professionals and college students gathered at Rudding Park in Harrogate for Yorkshire’s first regional development event focused on under-30s in the sector.
The event was developed and delivered by young members of the HJB themselves. Not disconnected senior managers, but people currently building their careers.

Sessions explored resilience and kindness, both essential for building a sustainable career in hospitality. Shanice Childerley, Founder of Haus of SC, delivered the keynote, drawing on her career spanning The Walt Disney Company, international cruise lines, and royal households to position hospitality as a prestigious, globally mobile career.

This wasn’t a motivational talk, but rather a strategic intervention designed to shift perceptions and provide tangible development opportunities.

Rise & Serve: Removing Barriers to Employment

The day after The Leaders of Tomorrow, the HJB celebrated the culmination of Rise & Serve, an eight-week pilot programme designed to support young people facing hidden barriers to employment.

702,000 people aged 16 to 24 are currently unemployed in the UK, 60,000 more than the previous year. Nearly half of NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) young people report a disability, and 1 in 10 NEET individuals are autistic.

The programme, developed in partnership with The Cookery School at The Grand, York, brought together 16 young people for hands-on training combining practical skills, coaching, and real-world experience.

Participants developed skills in food safety, customer service, menu development, marketing, and teamwork. Support included flexibility around sensory needs, anxiety, and confidence, weekly coaching and peer support, and travel expense coverage.

The programme culminated in a live pop-up event at The Grand, planned and delivered by participants, who welcomed 40 guests from across the region: general managers, business owners, educators, local and regional government partners, and HJB alumni.
The results speak for themselves:

• 100% of participants completed the full eight-week programme
• 100% reported increased confidence in pursuing hospitality careers
• All 16 participants took roles across kitchen, front-of-house, and marketing

Rise & Serve achieved an 80% retention target, with every participant completing the programme and reporting increased confidence.

Why This Matters Beyond Yorkshire

These aren’t isolated initiatives, but rather responses to sector-wide challenges.

The hospitality industry has lost 59,000 employees in the past 12 months, making it the worst-hit sector in the UK labour market according to the Office for National Statistics.

Hospitality vacancies currently stand at over 132,000 (48% above pre-pandemic levels), whilst the industry faces an annual turnover rate of 70-80%.

Only a small percentage of young people see hospitality as a career of choice, with outdated perceptions presenting a significant barrier.

The UK Government recognised this urgency, introducing a £1 billion employment package in March 2026 to create 200,000 new job opportunities for 16 to 24 year-olds, including a £3,000 hiring grant for businesses.

Foundation apprenticeships expanded into hospitality and retail from April 2026, providing 16 to 21 year-olds with entry-level paid jobs plus structured training, supported by a £2,000 employer incentive.

The infrastructure is being built at a national level, whilst regional initiatives like Hospitality Live and the HJB’s programmes demonstrate what that infrastructure can achieve when executed with strategic focus and genuine commitment.

What We’ve Learnt About Strategic CSR

Our involvement with these initiatives has reinforced several beliefs about what effective CSR actually requires.

• Expertise matters more than funding. We’ve provided marketing, PR, and administrative support to the HJB, services that would cost tens of thousands of pounds if purchased commercially. That support has enabled them to deliver programmes with tangible outcomes.
• Long-term commitment beats one-off gestures. We’re not sponsoring a single event, but rather embedding ourselves in the ongoing work of building better pathways into the sector.
• Alignment with business objectives creates sustainability. Supporting the hospitality sector’s talent pipeline isn’t altruism but strategy, as a stronger sector benefits everyone operating within it, including us and our clients.
• Collaboration amplifies impact. Hospitality Live succeeded because four Yorkshire-based leaders (Louise Wright, Wayne Topley of Cedar Court Hotels, Paula Kelsey of Famtastic Rocks, and Benjamin Campbell of the Royal Armouries) pooled their expertise and networks.

CSR That Actually Does Something

Corporate social responsibility has become a box-ticking exercise for too many organisations: donate to a charity, sponsor a local event, post about it on LinkedIn.

We’ve taken a different approach, committing our expertise to initiatives that address the hospitality sector’s most urgent challenge, supporting programmes that create measurable outcomes, and helping build infrastructure that will benefit the sector for years to come.

This is CSR that recognises our success is tied to the sector’s success. It’s strategic, sustainable, and grounded in the belief that hospitality deserves the same investment in talent development as any other industry.

The work continues, the sector needs it, and we’re committed to being part of the solution.