Hospitality can learn lessons from Tour de France stars

I recently returned from the Alps, where I enjoyed the raucous spectacle and superhuman athleticism of the Tour de France. Unlike conventional team sports, fans are allowed within beer-scented breathing distance of the stars, like a rowdier version of diners taking the counter seats to watch their favourite chefs at work.

First for the pre-race build-up, and plenty has been said about the fiercely-guarded Gallic work-life-balance, yet it still caught us off guard to experience it first-hand on Bastille Day. I was among a horde of lycra-clad amateurs eager to be fed and watered, but most supermarkets and restaurants shut early to mark the national holiday. Up on the mountain, a fanzone serving water and beer was cash-only, leaving us walking away thirsty and empty-handed.

While humbled in my own effort up the Grand Colombier, it was awe-inspiring to see first-hand the impact of aerodynamics on the professional race. Though less beneficial on steeper gradients, staying with the strongest riders provides a powerful psychological boost. The difference between winning and losing can sometimes be measured in split seconds, but the energy saved by shielding among supporting teammates can be huge. It’s often at the pointy end of the race when the cruising riders are exposed, and the elastic snaps. Once a gap opens up, a three-week stage race can be lost in minutes.

The pressure might be different, but like those riding for the yellow jersey, hospitality operators are expected to offer uniform consistency day-after-day, as the old adage you’re only as good as your last meal says. Decent businesses can be coasting along one minute, but going backwards the next, if they fail to innovate and invest. Like the peloton, the kinetic energy of the sector creates a febrile market, where weaker me-too concepts are sometimes carried along for the ride before being found out. 

Hospitality operators were sheltered from the wind coming out of Covid by VAT relief, the rent moratorium and other state support, while consumers flash with cash created atypical trading conditions. Like this year’s freakishly strong Tour de France contenders, an abnormal market makes for tough year-on-year comparisons. Now, inflationary pressures are pushing some exhausted business to the wall, like a blood sugar crash. Interest rates hikes are exacerbating these energy-sapping headwinds, as debt servicing adds unwanted excess weight to the struggle over the mountain. It stands to reason that only the leanest businesses with the best balance sheets are best placed to crest the summit in prime position.

To conclude this over-extended analogy, cycling and hospitality are fairly unique in not fitting into the winner-takes-all dynamic typical of adjacent sports and business sectors. Both operate in a large, diverse, friendly, intellectually curious but highly competitive ecosystem. There are plenty of rewards available for different rider profiles and businesses; while the key players and their consumers are equally passionate. Ultimate success still depends on excellence, dedicated long hours of work – but also on a unified team effort all pulling in the same direction, from the selfless domestiques and mechanics, to the operations directors and kitchen porters.