Why Is Hospitality Fighting Itself?
This bonus episode of Talking Hospitality is recorded live at Confex in London and shines a light on an unusual but powerful initiative bringing the industry together.
Timothy R Andrews sits down with Paul Gilley, founder of the London Hospitality Festival, to discuss Hospitality Fight Night — an event that takes hospitality professionals with no boxing experience and puts them through a 12-week training journey before stepping into the ring in front of hundreds of industry peers.
But this event isn’t really about boxing.
It’s about resilience, wellbeing, confidence and community. Participants train together, build friendships and challenge themselves in ways many never expected. The evening itself becomes a celebration of the industry, with leaders and colleagues gathering to support the fighters and raise funds for Hospitality Action, the charity that supports hospitality workers in times of crisis.
Paul also shares the wider story behind the London Hospitality Festival — an event that has grown over nearly two decades to bring thousands of hospitality professionals together through sport, connection and shared purpose.
This episode is a reminder that hospitality is at its best when people come together, support one another and invest in the wellbeing of the industry.
Show Notes:
In this episode we discuss:
- The idea behind Hospitality Fight Night
- Why hospitality professionals are stepping into the boxing ring
- The 12-week training journey participants go through
- Confidence, fitness and personal development through sport
- The role of community and camaraderie in hospitality
- Raising funds for Hospitality Action
- The story behind the London Hospitality Festival
- Why wellbeing and looking after people matters more than ever in hospitality
Key Takeaways:
1. Hospitality Fight Night is about the journey, not the boxing
Participants train for twelve weeks, building confidence, resilience and friendships along the way.
2. Community is one of hospitality’s greatest strengths
Events like this remind people that the sector works best when it comes together.
3. Personal growth can come from unexpected places
Many participants start with no boxing experience but finish with new skills and confidence.
4. Charity remains at the heart of the industry
Funds raised from the event support Hospitality Action, helping hospitality workers when they need it most.
5. Sport has long been a connector in hospitality
The event builds on the legacy of the London Hospitality Festival, which brings thousands of professionals together each year.
6. Wellbeing is now central to leadership in hospitality
Paul reflects on how the industry has shifted towards caring more about people, culture and mental health.
Paul Gilley explains Hospitality Fight Night, where hospitality professionals train for 12 weeks to step into the ring and raise money for Hospitality Action.
Links referenced in this episode:
00:00 - Untitled
00:26 - Introducing the Guests
00:46 - Introduction to Hospitality Fight Night
04:43 - The Journey of Boxing Training
05:37 - The Charity Connection: Hospitality Action
07:38 - The Rise of the London Hospitality Festival
09:49 - Reflections on the Industry
Talking Hospitality Theme Tune (By Shape The Future)
The voices, you know, Timothy, Tracy and Joe on the show. From front of house to chefs on the line, every voice can shape the future each time, Every voice can.
Timothy R Andrews
Hello, welcome to another episode of Talking Hospitality. We have a bonus episode today with the lovely Paul Gilly and we are Confex in Excel London.
Paul Gilley
Welcome.
Timothy R Andrews
Why are we here? We're here courtesy of MMG Events. We're recording and editing this. So thank you very much.So we're here with Paul Gilly because we're running a very special event shortly, aren't you?
Paul Gilley
I am called Hospitality Fight Night.
Timothy R Andrews
Hospitality Fight Night. What is Hospitality Fight Night?
Paul Gilley
So something we came up with last year that's going, that's taken hospitality staff that have never boxed before, taking them on a 12 week training program to teach them to box and then having a black tie evening with five bouts, four bouts males and one bout, two ladies in front of 450 of their peers, colleagues, friends to not really. It's not going to be the best boxing, I don't think. But what I think it's going to be is, is show is demonstrate the journey they've been on.Well, being resilience, togetherness, all those things that are so, so relevant nowadays.
Timothy R Andrews
When I think about boxing and hospitality, I'm thinking you're putting your pastries in a box or you're putting your chocolates in a box, not paying people with gloves. Yeah. How did you go from hospitality to an idea of getting people to box and do this event?
Paul Gilley
So for 17 years we've been running a sporting event which we'll talk about in a minute called London Hospitality Festival.And this is a bit different in as much as it's another sport but we wanted to do a black tie evening do and bring in the leaders of the industry to sit around, have a glass champagne, share network and watch something.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah.
Paul Gilley
And with. Because we're a sporting events organizers, we felt that, that the boxing bit could be the cabaret to the evening. Yeah. So we're.We're hosting it at the Royal National Hotel which is part of Imperial London Hotels. In fact the Royal national, you might not know this is the largest hotel in Europe. It's got 1600 bedrooms.
Timothy R Andrews
Wow, I didn't know that anyway. And going to need it after about.
Paul Gilley
Probably. Yeah. So we will be there.Everyone have a glass of champagne, chat, you know, beautiful dinner and then at the end of that we then welcome in the fighters two by two and they go through the process and we have winners and drawers and whatever. Whatever. But yeah, so it sort of Followed on from the sporting that we've done, but in a different way.
Timothy R Andrews
So, Paul, you talked about the journey of the contestants and the people that are fighting. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? But also, little bloody tells me you're also standing in the ring, is that right?
Paul Gilley
So if my wife's listening, I'm not standing in the ring. Okay. Because that's an absolute. No. No, definitely not. But I started the training with them, which is where you probably got that.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah.
Paul Gilley
So on the same day as everybody else, I walked into the gym, which is a little arch under the water, under Waterloo, the train lines. Been there for 100 years. See a sawdust from a floor. Beautiful, beautiful place. And we all walked in there, 20 of us, and.And put on our gloves for the first time. You can see they're very new. They've. They've hardly been used.
Timothy R Andrews
These ain't been used for training.
Paul Gilley
So put on a glove and literally was, how do you do this? You know, that's a jab, that. And. And we learned it six weeks later. We are boxing with sparring. So somebody hit me and broke a rib. Was good, though.But the adrenaline, the rush is fantastic. I love it. I come home every night from it absolutely buzzing. And. And when we get to 12 weeks, when we get to the night, everybody is.You can't believe the journey they've gone on from not knowing what boxing is to the family that we've created and the skills they've got. Yeah, some of them are absolutely fantastic.
Timothy R Andrews
Imagine, also, it's kind of. Well, I actually know somebody who's fighting, but their confidence changes as well. Right. Because their body's changing, they're feeling fitter.Also, they know how to fight.
Paul Gilley
We asked, we asked all 20 of them, why are you doing this journey? And not one of them said, I want to hit someone. Not one of them said, I want to be hit.What they said was, I want to learn a new skill, I want to get fit, I want to lose some weight, I want to meet some new people. Those were all the reasons they've done it. And. And we have created that.The 15 that are left are like, they're my friends, they'll be my friends forever. And, And. But every night, you know, tonight I'll be doing it. We're going in, you know, punching each other. Yeah, but it's not really.It's not really boxing as long as that. You know, you come to the night, you'll be disappointed. If you come to see boxing, you'll be Absolutely exhilarated.If you've come to see the learning curve and the well being and the development and that the comrade camaraderie that is going to be there on the night. I know I'm not boxing.
Timothy R Andrews
If you're listening, Mrs. Gilly, we ain't boxing.
Paul Gilley
No.
Timothy R Andrews
Anyway, next to the next thing is obviously you've attached yourself to a charity.
Paul Gilley
Yes.
Timothy R Andrews
Which I think is probably quite an important part of this piece of hospitality action.
Paul Gilley
Yes.
Timothy R Andrews
We spoke to them on this podcast before, but they are a very important charity for hospitality. Why have you chosen them as your, your charity?
Paul Gilley
We've known them from the events that we've done before for a long, long time.Mark Lewis is, you know, is, is a friend and they do an incredible job and the reason we've chosen them specifically is Imperial London Hotels who are hosting us as their hotel. They own seven hotels in Russell Square and so they're hosting us. They wanted to do something specifically for hospitality action.They work very closely with them and they love what they do. So they chose the charity and everything is going, all the, all the profits are going to them.
Timothy R Andrews
Right.
Paul Gilley
So it's going to be, it's going to be exciting. Now they'll be there on. I'll be. They'll be showcasing what they do to the 450 people in the room. So it's a good awareness piece too.I mean everybody's aware and customer teleaction.
Timothy R Andrews
So there are just links in the show notes to the charity and of course fight night as well. If somebody wants to get in contact with you, what's the best way to do that?
Paul Gilley
Email call, connect with you. However, you know, social media. LinkedIn. I'm going to LinkedIn.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah.
Paul Gilley
Hospitality Fight Night or Paul Gilly on LinkedIn.
Timothy R Andrews
So we'll also put a link to Paul Gilly's LinkedIn on our show notes as well.
Paul Gilley
Got a few tables left.
Timothy R Andrews
Right.
Paul Gilley
Not many and there's no. And there's no space for bounce, there's no space for fighters.
Timothy R Andrews
Paul, about you though, because your background is quite interesting because you're not just. Somebody's come in, decided, I'm going to do a boxing match with some hospitality people because I had bad service one day. Yes, you want to do.Your whole story is a lot bigger than that. Do you want to share with our audience?
Paul Gilley
I think we've, I think someone's branded us as social entrepreneurs.So we 17 years ago started an event called the London Hospitality Festival and we got some hotels together, the Ritz, the Dorchester, the Royal Lancaster, a few others. Ten of them were jumpers for goalposts in Hyde Park. And we had a game of football. We bet everyone loved that we did it. The following year it doubled.And so last year we had 150 hotels and restaurants from across London, three and a half thousand people from. From those businesses.Eating, drinking, listening to music, bringing the kids, bringing the wives, playing football, playing softball, playing beach volleyball, dodgeball, tennis, paddle darts. So all of these things. And it's about the hospitality sector getting together and doing something together. So you forget that you're a competitor.You forget that Dorchester is against the rates on that day. We're all together. We're all in together. I. My background is hotels. Then I went into recruitment.I'm a fellow of the Institute of Hospitality, which I recommend highly. It's a fantastic organization. We've raised a lot of money and awareness for them over the years. But it was a. Yeah, so that, that sort of.All the ingredients were there. I loved hotels. I loved hospitality. I loved the various, you know, pieces of the jigsaw. And that day just brought it all together.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah.
Paul Gilley
And there are many days.There are many days where you can go to an event with your colleagues, but you can also bring your partner and your children and have an ice cream and play on a bachelor to get your face painted. It was what. It's done very well and it works very well.
Timothy R Andrews
It is a brilliant day. Yes. When I was working, I can say it now, when I was working at Jumeirah Hotels, we had a team, our team.
Paul Gilley
Yes.
Timothy R Andrews
We didn't win, but we gave it our best. But was a wonderful day. Everyone was speaking very highly and I got to see people relaxed outside work.
Paul Gilley
Yeah.
Timothy R Andrews
And it does bring people together. It's great. And then there's no other, no other agenda than to have fun and get to know people. So keep an eye out for it for this year, I guess.
Paul Gilley
Yes, definitely. Sunday 6th September.
Timothy R Andrews
We've mentioned about mental health and wellness. Is that something that's quite core to you or part.
Paul Gilley
I think, you know, I'm. I'm not a young man more. And so the driving force for me is not to build a business and conquer the world. That for me now as a fellow, as a.As a hotelier, is to look after the people on our industry.I think I'm one of the few people that thinks that Covid, possibly and Brexit, there was a change then that meant we, we didn't treat people badly anymore. There, There were businesses out there that were not looking after their kitchen porters, we're not looking after their staff.That's not an option anymore because staff are so precious that, you know, well, being engagement, diversity inclusive, all these things are so, you know, they're day to day words now in hr.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah.
Paul Gilley
And so that's, that's my focus is, is about bringing the industry together, looking after the industry, which is, which is a really nice place to be in, actually.
Timothy R Andrews
Yeah. Paul, thank you very much for.
Paul Gilley
Thank you.
Timothy R Andrews
Joining me today in this beautiful arena. Yes, thank you for the last minute as well. I know you're a busy man.
Paul Gilley
No, it's fine.
Timothy R Andrews
Thank you for what you've done for our industry and continue to do for our industry.
Paul Gilley
And I look forward to welcoming all of you to the festival in September.
Timothy R Andrews
Yes, please do.And again, we'll put some links down and a big shout out to today's sponsors, Hospitality Jobs uk, HJ UK and Graphic Kitchen, for making today possible. And again, big thank you to MMG events who have allowed today's episode to flow throughout. Thank you very much. Have a good day.