An interview with Bea Tollman – founder and president of Red Carnation Hotels.
RC: Could we please talk about what I like to call the ‘boutique experience’ and what it means to you?
BT: Well, the boutique experience to me is the fact that people feel they are almost walking into a home where the welcome is warm and genuine and where they are recognized for whom they are… but they’re a guest and every guest should feel special; and that’s what we really aim to do. When guests arrive at the hotel they do feel they are warmly welcomed; and made to feel special and comfortable.
RC: Yes, everybody wants recognition…
BT: Yes…
RC: …but want recognition in different ways…
BT: I think they want it as a genuine feeling; because having traveled a lot, and been to many great hotels around the world, and when you go into some of the larger hotels, the staff have been taught certain things they have to say; it doesn’t come from the heart; and everybody you pass along a corridor or anywhere in the hotel they all say the same things. You just feel they’ve been taught to say that… I believe my staff genuinely feel pleased to see a guest – hopefully know their name – and feel that they mean what they say.
RC: This comes through in talking to guests; it’s a real feeling. But how do you instill this in your staff?
BT: It’s through training; and also from leadership example… how you genuinely feel about people, and I do feel it comes from the top, and takes a certain amount of training… to know what is expected… how a top manager, when they are around the hotel, behaves to the guests; and that’s the example to follow. In my case, I think they’ve seen this through all the years. I am genuinely pleased and happy to see guests – and care so much about them. For me they’re important; I worry that they’re looked after in the right way. And I think they see this from our use of departments and the training that we give them; to make them passionate – and I do feel that our whole team at Red Carnation feels the same way about feeling passionate about our guests and the hotels and its standards.
RC: Well I feel that is manifest….
BT: I think basically it’s been shown especially in this last year; we have won so many awards…
RC: You’ve been what you might call, punching above your weight… which is extraordinary.
BT: Yes, that is well put, punching above your weight…
RC: And why is this? Is it because of the training, this service, this recognition? I don’t want to put words into your mouth…
BT: No, well I said it’s the training really, the training, and example, the heads of departments, from the top down; from me, the managers, heads of departments; it’s a genuine feeling that permeates down. And the staff sees that they realize that that is very important and they feel it themselves.
RC: You have constant contact with the general managers… and all the staff really…
BT: Well yes, they also see it in another way, because I see every arrivals list for every hotel every day and who they are, what room they’re going into, what the rate is, how many times they’ve been to stay. And I write personal notes to many of these. Somebody might be coming and having a 50th wedding anniversary. I might not who they are, or they haven’t been there before, but I make sure they get something special, and I’ll write a note to welcome them and congratulate them.
If somebody has been there fifteen times I like to do something personal there too; that I appreciate their custom and that we care and that we know what they’re doing and what they like – you know we have the guest preference, and it’s always looked at before a guest checks in if we have it on our computer.
And so we watch all of those details. And the staff knows it: I will phone up and say, ‘What about Mr So and So? What are you going to send him because he’s been there on thirty visits; and are you going to send him something extra tonight – snacks in his room, or whatever else there might be?’ And I do special things for different occasions. So the staff knows that I do that and I take a great interest in our guests; and I think this helps to permeate… the idea about how one should worry about the guests and their comfort.
RC: Is there an optimum size for a boutique hotel?
BT: Well I think it should be under a hundred odd rooms; because other than that, to make it a real boutique hotel, because how do have that contact with that amount of guests? We still keep high standards, but I think that’s the optimum amount really. Although we do at the Rubens where we have 180 rooms; our management is so aware and they watch for all of these things as well. And they’re well aware of companies and people who again and again, to really look after them. So a hotel that size is really difficult to run as a boutique hotel, but we have a jolly good try at doing that.
RC: You now have thirteen hotels in several countries – Durban, Cape Town, London, Palm Beach, Dorset, Guernsey, Geneva… how do you select hotels that you want to acquire or get involved with? What are the criteria that you look for?
BT: It’s a hotel that has potential in the right location. And often the hotels that we’ve looked at and purchased over the years have not been in a good state but you could see that they have had tremendous potential with some loving care, money, and style. And then to create from that base, just an ordinary-looking hotel, into something that you can turn into a beautiful hotel. And location is so important. If you don’t have a good location, you really are finding it very difficult to run a very good hotel…
RC: Location…
BT: That’s where it’s at, you know. Every one of our hotels has a wonderful location. If you think about it, The Montague’s next to the British Museum; The Rubens, opposite Buckingham Palace; The Egerton is in Kensington, Harrods and all of those shops on probably the most expensive real estate street in London… so it’s a very appealing concept to a lot of European travelers who want to be in an exclusive small hotel, where they really know who you are, and be very private… You couldn’t have a better location than the Milestone; 41 is in the same location as the Rubens… and the hotels in South Africa are the same, in a unique location. And the Angleterre in Geneva, you can’t have a better location than that…
RC: Yes, the Angleterre has a marvelous location on the lake, with a view of the Jet d’Eau… and a very good restaurant that we used when I worked in Geneva years ago; … How do you see hotel restaurants… as a profit center, or…
BT: Well it’s not a great profit center but you have to have a good restaurant for your guests. And the Egerton is the only hotel we have that doesn’t have a restaurant, but we have wonderful room service and snack and bar menu, and there are so many restaurants around… and a guest always loves to go out. The first thing they when they arrive is, where should we go for dinner? They often don’t look at your own hotel restaurant as a place to go to. It’s only if they know it, they’ve heard about it and they look at the menu, there are things here that I would like to have. Basically, most guests when they get to a hotel they want to see where they want to go to dinner – out. So it’s hard to attract them, to keep in the hotel, to at least have one meal. So you want to entice them to eat there and give them an experience that they will remember and want to come back. Some people like very exotic and unusual food, fussy food; and then we always try and provide what a lot of guests want – comfort food. So we have a section of our menus which are my recipes.
RC: I love your cook book, by the way. You’ve got all that sort of food in there; it’s what I call real food, not messed about food…
BT: I agree. So many people are going back to that sort of food. You can go to a restaurant and everything might look good, piled up one thing on top of the other. How can you keep food like that hot? How can you mix so many flavors together? Are you eating food or are you eating a creative… picture.
RC: Exactly. And sometimes the poetry of the menu is unrecognizable when the dishes arrive…
BT: But it’s got to be edible. And you know I always tell our chefs all the time, just taste everything that goes out of the kitchen; the executive chef’s got to taste every departments food before it goes out. But just say, is this delicious? The only way to test if it’s right: Is this delicious? And if it’s not, improve it, or change the recipe or something.
RC: In some cities in the Far East, in Hong Kong, for example, the hotel restaurant is the best restaurant in town; locals go out to dine there…
BT: Exactly, exactly… We have a lot of people who come to dine in our restaurants from other places, not necessarily just guests in the hotel. You have to build up a reputation; you have to really entice them.
You have these big name restaurants of famous chefs, they get the whole restaurant, it’s under their name, and it works well in many instances. But they’ve also got to look after the guests staying in the hotel; and usually their interests and care isn’t really in the guests in the hotel. So it’s not just the restaurant in itself at meal times but at all other times of the day and the night.
And we just don’t believe in that. I’m not saying they’re not successful. But we don’t believe in that; we like to have control over what we serve and what people like because we’re guided by them; we get an analysis every month of what are the most popular dishes; what they like, what they don’t like. And it’s very interesting, and it guides us as to what the tastes of the public really are. So it’s helpful for us doing that.
RC: I’ve had some experience of family businesses in other domains, such as health care… One of the great advantages is what you might call ‘patient capital;’ as compared to the public company’s utter dependence on quarterly ‘return on investment’ figures, and the market, and outside shareholders. You don’t have this problem – it’s a great advantage.
BT: Exactly, no we don’t. We have patience, and we know that certain things take a long time to build up, they really do; it is patience that you have to take and you have to be able to support it and afford it. You know, the moment that things aren’t so good, whether it be the economy, or you’re not doing very well, it’s cut, cut, cut. And then all the work that’s gone in to create the standards falls away and then where are you? It’s a shortsighted sot of policy…
RC: Yes, that’s the key, because you can beyond what a public company can do…
BT: Right. With shareholders you have to report the right things, and they say right, cut that… but then it’s hard to keep your standards up as a five star hotel, or even a four star. When you’re proud of what you do, you’re proud of your standards. And people aren’t stupid; they immediately see, oh, they’re cutting this out now, they’re cutting that out now… and I believe in generosity, and I like people to feel that there’s a generous feeling towards our guests – it might just be giving away small things, just that feeling of welcoming and generosity that counts when guests come to your hotel and to your restaurant.
RC: Well, you are certainly focused on attention to detail. I remember when you showed me round the Milestone when we first met several years ago and I was struck because we were in a bathroom or a bedroom or something, and you were looking around and you said, ‘Oh, we need another hook here. You can’t have too many hooks.’
BT: Yes, it’s anticipating guests’ needs; putting your self in the place of the guest: have I got this? I didn’t find that in my room etc. and also if you travel you pick up ideas, and you see that is a good idea. I introduced the whole thing with the ‘business ready’ rooms in our hotels, where you’ve got paper, a ruler, staples, paper clips, and all of those things; it’s so important if you’re on business; that’s a very personal thing we do but it’s very useful and people like that. We just try to think of ways to make the guests’ stay more pleasurable, more individual I suppose…
RC: How have you seen the guests’ needs, desires and so on changing over the years?
BT: Well they certainly have changed, you see that all the time; the whole thing with the Internet, the web sites, all of those things. So you see now what they need, and you obviously try to keep up with the times and what’s going on in the hotel industry. Everybody boasts, well not everybody, but I know that free Internet service is very important. So you’ll lose guests if you don’t… it’s a way of making money; and everyone has their telephone. The hotels used to make a lot of money through their telephones and they don’t do that any more… those little things make so much difference.
RC: Yes, because in the old days was relatively minimal, a comfortable bed, armchair, nice bathroom… Nowadays now they assume they’ve got to have web access…
BT: Yes, and they’ve got to charge their phones… you’ve got to have everything that’s easy to find, easy to use, and user-friendly and all the things that you need in a modern life all the time. And then the guests’ standards have risen. They expect so much more today because there’s such competition; everybody is battling to get more business and be better than their competitors. It’s a very competitive field today…
RC: There was a time when a comfortable bed was a comfortable bed. Now people are asking about ‘thread counts’ and whatever…
BT: They’re astute today, you know. Pillows… we have all of that. We send a guest preference form asking, what kind of pillows do you like; what kind of…? everything that a guest might want, so that it’s all ready and waiting for them in their rooms. I don’t how much more one can do.
RC: So where’s it all going? With all the competition out there…
BT: Well, what it all amounts to really is the service. That’s where it’s going to go because everybody’s got everything today; you read up what your competitors are doing and you do it… So what really counts, I’ve always said the same thing, it’s your staff and how you genuinely care about your guests.
RC: And the training…
BT: Well, the training is everything: And the motivation; to motivate passion into your staff, and to be proud of working in that hotel or that company. That’s the thing that makes their working life more interesting and they know there’s a chance to do better in a company where someone’s watching over them, and encouraging them to grow.
RC: Yes, I’ve been very impressed doing interviews with Liz McGivern [director of human resources and training] and you’ve just won a big prize.
BT: We’ve won prizes – against giants; every major hotel company.
RC: And I’ve always been very impressed at your annual staff appreciation party… especially whenever someone from a staff table of colleagues is called up for a prize, there’s a palpably genuine cheering… this is very special.
BT: There is a spirit among the staff…
RC: Are you still looking for acquisitions? Have your eyes open for opportunities?
BT: Well, one has… but one wants to be able to grow not too much that you can’t do today to keep up the standards with the input that we have to give from the higher level of management into the different hotels. You can spread yourself that thin, because you just get busier and busier, standards get higher in the hotels; the things that we do takes an awful lot of time and effort… How can you keep that spirit up when you’ve got too many hotels? We’ve got fifteen operations now; and to look after all of those and to watch what’s going on, to know what’s happening, and to encourage them and do the right thing… it takes a tremendous amount of work.
RC: I’ve always believed that you have to plan to have an optimum size business, which may be a small business. Do you feel that you have ‘institutionalized’ as it were the Red Carnation family, so that if you were to retire, or whatever, so that if you are not there, things still work in the spirit that you have engendered?
BT: You hope that it would do; and you hope that the people I’ve been working with all these years will always keep up that attitude, that they’ll still be there, that they won’t be away… Because, as you can imagine, if you’ve won all these different prizes, opportunities come up with other companies; everybody’s always trying to poach your people; it’s not easy to find good people today who know the business. And when you have achieved certain recognition, we’re obviously a good place to poach from. But we’ve got such a loyalty factor in us. So what would happen if I decided to retire? Well, I’ll never retire! But as the business gets bigger there’s so much you can do in a day. But I hope that our management team is so passionately inspired that they’ll always keep up these standards, so proud of the name. It all depends on who is at the tope and who is orchestrating it – and keeping them that proud. Because everybody is proud, with all the accolades they’re winning; they’re all so proud to be working with this company… we’re fighting giants; I always say it’s David and Goliath.
RC: It’s truly amazing – with all the huge resources that these people have. I’ve talked to a number of what I call entrepreneurs, or family companies… I talked to Richard Branson, two years after he started the airline, and how he was trying to be competitive by training his cabin staff in the Virgin way without the ‘plastic’ smile. So he didn’t want cabin staff with actual airline experience – except heads of cabin and flight crew, who he poached from BA.
BT: That’s basically what it is. And you know the thing is, I try and inspire the young people to know that there’s somebody watching over them, that everybody has an opportunity to grow; that your talents are noticed. And I also try and explain to them that we have lots of meetings; we have our newsletter, and I watch over them. I like to tell them that anybody can do anything and in the hotel business you can rise in the different ranks quicker than you can in most businesses because you are noticed – by us, not in every hotel.
But we notice… we have all these different ways of noticing people and their performance because we have these weekly, these monthly meetings and they all vote who was the best… in the hotels. They have an afternoon tea party in every hotel once a month. And then they win points and they’ll say, who was the best manager of these departments last month, and they’ll get points; then they’ll have stars, and that’s how they manage their own competition so to speak. So it motivates them all to win a star, get so many stars, and then at the end of the year when we have that party, they themselves vote who they thought was the manager of the year in that hotel; they vote for themselves who they all recognize. Now this person, let’s say, in the food and beverage department, during the year he’s got so many stars or points, and they all know that…
We don’t choose every prize winner. The staff themselves choose the prize winner of that hotel; they all see; they all work together…
Then they also change positions during the year. The doorman might end up being a receptionist; a manager will be a doorman… so they see how difficult or easy or whatever it is working in another department.
RC: So how do they compare departments?
BT: Well, it’s difficult, you know. Some of them may say, gosh, my job is so difficult, the most difficult type of job in the hotel, and they’re put into another position… And then when they try this out in different positions, they get to understand what it’s all about. So they get the experience of knowing … how a hotel runs, and how important everybody is whether they’re washing the dishes in the kitchen, or whatever…
So we have all these things. And at Christmas times, myself and the manager of the hotel and the management staff all give a Christmas party where I give my gifts to 2,000 all over the world – from me. Then at the party all the management team will wait on the staff; we’ll give out the presents, serve them dinner and everything. And we go from hotel to hotel and give a Christmas party, in two shifts, we give out the presents, I give a little speech, encourage them all. And we do picnics in the park and all kinds of things like that. So they feel they’re part of a big family.
Jonathan and I work at this all the time and watching the standards. There are so many things that I notice and watch, food-wise as well as everything else; if they look clean and tidy, if their shoes are polished, all kinds of things that can slip. Nothing should slip.
RC: I’m going to do some interviews at the Hotel School in Lausanne [Ecole Hoteliere] which is a huge resource for ideas… What sort of things, which areas, should I be looking at? I mean, I can ask questions like, how are you developing the hotel manager of the future? That sort of thing…
BT: It’s sort of knowing the standards of a hotel and having a very critical eye; you should be watching everything. It’s by example. Nothing should be left half done; if you see something that’s not right, you should immediately do it, and be enthusiastic about doing it. It’s just about caring; knowing that certain standards have to be kept up. But you’ve got to learn, and train your eye to notice these things; to put them right; and then to be genuine, to be sincere. Because hotel management is the same all around; everybody is taught the same things: how to run a department; what you should look for.
It all comes down to service.
RC: In a number of industries – especially at a very high level – people can move around fairly easily between different types of business… Is the hotel industry so special, or different, that you cannot bring in a manager from another discipline into a hotel?
BT: I don’t think you could really; I don’t think you could. Because, you know, you have to be really trained in the hotel business. It’s looking for the detail – because it’s a detail business. I think every business is detail really; a business is as good as its manager. There’s no such thing as a bad business. It’s management really.
But the one thing about being in the hotel business for people working in the hotel business; you’ve got a way of traveling around the world, and you can take your qualifications and get a job anywhere. That’s very nice because young people can travel the world and gain experience, get jobs in other parts of the world, and move with their talents. In the hotel business every thing is the same. If you’re a chef you can cook anywhere; if you’re a receptionist… if you’ve got some experience in the hotel business.
RC: That’s interesting, because I’ve always had this thing about the mobile manager with ‘portable skills,’ being able to translate yourself to another company. Many redundant middle-aged executives who find it hard to find another job because pretty well all they have to offer is expertise in the culture of their old company.
BT: Exactly. In the hotel business you can actually go anywhere, do anything, step down into another position, you can still be useful, helpful and able to earn a living. And I feel a lot of our young people… I encourage them to move; I hate losing them when they’re good. But I understand, because that’s the way they’re going to learn. A lot of the people we’ve had working for us didn’t know anything when they started; and I see this at Summer Lodge so much of the time.
They come from France and all around Europe and they work in the restaurant, housekeeping, or reception. And they can’t speak English; they don’t know what to do. And in a year or so they are management material; they are fantastic. And then after a couple of years they want to move on to something else, they don’t like the country life any more, they want to go to a city, to go to another country, and I’ve got the most wonderful people, my students I almost call it, they’re all over the world now. Other hotels are lucky to get people who have been qualified in my university.
RC: That reminds me of Proctor & Gamble in the old days. If we could get a product manager who had been at P&G, we knew they’d be good people… we knew they would have been properly trained in consumer marketing.
BT: I see these young people, and they’re young, and I say, why are you leaving? And they’ll say, we want to go and work in America or somewhere else. The e-mails we get from people in Australia, Canada, from all over, who have left us and gone on to other things, and have been made managers; thanks to the basic grounding we’ve given them. Because when they came to us they knew nothing.
RC: With thirteen hotels now it seems to me you’ve got the critical mass to be able to some extent offer career development across the hotel collection.
BT: Yes, it’s wonderful. You know we have people coming and going from South Africa to here, where they get trained… and of course it’s wonderful. We train them so well, and they’re keen to learn, and they know they’ve got a future with us. And they back to our hotels there; it’s a wonderful resource for them in South Africa – and for us. We’ve got the opportunity to train people and make it a better industry in South Africa, for instance.