BII had "become arrogant and lazy" in not clearly defining what it represents, admits chief executive Peter Thomas

Responding to a question from a training provider at the BII’s London roadshow last week, Thomas said that the next “five to 10 years looks pretty grim” if the BII fails to explain its purpose.

Maurizio Pepi-Fisichella, director of development and training at training firm London Metropolitan Academy, told Thomas he was “confused” about what the BII stands for.

“I get confused from time to time when I come to these roadshows, or meetings, at the BII,” said Pepi-Fisichella. “You talk to people and they ask ‘What is BII? What does it represent?’.

“It is very peculiar because, when I became a trainer with your organisation, I had a choice between certification bodies and I decided to
come to BII because of the quality of the publications. and your books, and everything else.

“Still today, nobody has come back to me and said ‘we have made a choice — we are representing only the pub industry because we cannot do anything else’.

“Then I come to this place and I see in your presentation the ambiguity of the wording — sometimes you use pubs, sometimes you
use hospitality.

“And we, both of us, are old enough to understand that those words are not synonyms. Those words mean two different things. The pub industry is not the hospitality industry, the hospitality industry is much, much wider than this.”

Thomas welcomed and endorsed Pepi-Fisichella’s words, and vowed to “find a solution” to something he admitted the BII had not done enough to address over the past five years.

“It can’t be for pubs, it has got to be for everything, and a lot of our qualifications apply right across the industry,” said Thomas.

“We have become arrogant, lazy, and have missed something in the past five years that has got us into this position. We have to address it.”