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Building an individualised brand

By Chris Sheppardson

The country house hotel sector is one of the most influenced by any movement in the economy. EP met with Julia Hands, Chairman and Chief Executive & Douglas Waddell, Operations Director, of Hand Picked Hotels to discover how they were finding the market and the competition.

"AT THE END OF THE DAY, WE HAVE A PRODUCT THAT WE ARE VERY PROUD OF AND BELIEVE APPEALS TO OUR CUSTOMER. WE WANT TO CONSTANTLY MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE IMPROVING AND SETTING HIGHER LEVELS OF STANDARDS, THAT OUR SUCCESS WILL CONTINUE AND EVOLVE."

As I prepared to meet with Julia Hands and Douglas Waddell, the Chairman and Operations Director respectively of Hand Picked Hotels, I wondered how they were finding the market.Did they find the same buoyancy outside London as many in the South East speak about or was it softer as many others have reported? After all, the country house market is notoriously difficult and highly competitive.

It has been said many times that the country house market will never again enjoy the halcyon days that perhaps it enjoyed in the late 1980’s and yet Hand Picked Hotels has built a name and reputation over the past six years that has seemingly risen above the market norm.Was this true, I wondered, or just a perception? If any business could give me a strong indication of the market, surely the country house sector would be the one that would feel a softening in the market if one existed?

Hand Picked Hotels was founded in 1999 when Guy and Julia Hands acquired seven hotels from Virgin for around £20 million. Later in the same year, they acquired 11 Arcadian Hotels from Wyndham International for £75 million.Today, Hand Picked Hotels operate 14 unique hotels across the country. Many will know the names of their hotels as they possess great traditions within the industry. For example, Ettingdon Park, near to Stratford on Avon and Rookery Hall in Cheshire. As Julia noted,“Many of our hotels are better known individually than is the company itself.”Other hotels in the portfolio include; Rhinefield House in the New Forest, Buxted Park (Sussex), Nutfield Priory (Surrey),Wood Hall (Yorkshire), the Priest House(Derby), Chilston Park (Kent) and L’Horizon (Jersey) amongst others.These are names that hoteliers throughout the country will know well.

Making a mark…

Hand Picked has certainly made its mark within a short period of time. One just has to look at the long list of accolades; AA Hotel Group of the Year 2004-2005, one of the top 50 companies to watch in 2005 by Real Business magazine,The Business Excellence Award presented by the Tourism Minister, the top award in the Tourism and Leisure business sectors for the First Women Awards 2005 organised by the CBI and finally, Julia was a finalist in Entrepreneur of the Year category for the National Business Awards in both 2005 and 2006.

So, I asked, how were they finding the market?

“It is genuinely very good and it appears to be strong,” commented Douglas, slightly bemused by the question.“I think that we are fortunate that we have some very strong operations that are able to be competitive in the market and are able to attract both good midweek corporate business as well as weekend leisure customers.However, as we stand, the market appears to be good and to have strength.”

So what were the key challenges that the business was facing?

“Like all businesses we have our challenges,” commented Douglas. “From an operational standpoint,we presently have three refurbishments going on which always presents its issues - how to give the customer an experience whilst at the same time building unseen. From a marketing point of view,we need to develop the name of Hand Picked in the wider market and we still have work to do on this.We are making progress but we still have some way to go.

Each hotel is unique and has its own character so the question is how do we develop a common brand that works across all the properties.We have, therefore, set a minimum two rosette standard that a Hand Picked Hotel is expected to deliver to the customer. Each General Manager is then encouraged to exceed this.”

It is interesting to listen to Douglas speak on the subject as this is man who has worked in a senior capacity within two of the major names in the sector over the past decade in Thistle Hotels and Queens Moathouse Hotels. It is actually rare for a senior executive to be able to successfully move from a large business environment to a more entrepreneurial environment but he is one to have successfully made that transition.Douglas, therefore, speaks from a position of both strength and knowledge.He always possesses a calm, unassuming demeanour and somehow the environment at Hand Picked does appear to fit him well.

“One of the things that we have tried to do is empower our managers,” commented Julia.“We want them to enjoy their work; to take pride in it and to do this they need to have the room to operate.”

“I agree” noted Douglas,“I have worked with the company for close to a year now and I felt at home almost from day one.There is no pretence.There is a genuine, honest, straight forward culture where the head office is really the support function.”

“We want to be excellent employers who people want to work for. If we are honest recruitment and retention is the greatest single issue that we face. I was delighted recently as four chefs that had left reapplied to join the company. One commented that they only realised what they had lost when they had left. It is nice when people say such things”

Julia was a different character to the one that I expected to meet. As I had prepared for the interview I had read about the many accolades that she had been honoured with and suspected that she would be a larger than life character. On the contrary, she is a very warm, genuine character who clearly really cares and takes pride in the company.There are no false pretensions; she is just very straight forward and considered.

A strong vision…

“The vision is the same today as it was when we started.We just constantly strive to work hard to find the right people that can help us deliver the vision. When I first started I thought that I could just say it once and everyone would understand. But that was not the case.We need to communicate it all the time, continuously and we have made it part of our culture so that everyone knows what we are striving to achieve. We want to create a collection of unconventional, vibrant hotels,modern hotels which also serve the highest standards in cuisine and service. Sounds so simple but is very hard to achieve.

Customer expectations have increased.There are many things that the customer expects today that they wouldn’t have just five years ago.The customer is becoming more sophisticated and therefore more demanding. It means that we need to constantly invest in our operations and this can be difficult in some of very old buildings. Implementing air conditioning in some of the historic buildings is a whole challenge in itself.”

Julia had originally been a lawyer who had moved into the sector following the acquisition of the hotels. Had it been different to what she had expected? She smiledknowingly.

“Yes and no. It has been great fun but, as with all things,we make mistakes as we move forward. For example, the biggest mistake I made was being persuaded that we should have one General Manger for two properties. It may have made a salary saving but we lost in everything else. We want to have hotels that excel in service that we offer our customers and this means that we need a General Manager at each property leading the way.”

Still a lot to do…

I was intrigued by their earlier comment that many of the hotels possessed higher profiles than the business itself. On the surface, this appeared to be a contradiction given the number of awards and recognition credited to the company. Many would dream of such recognition and yet it was clear that Douglas and Julia both believed that there was still much to do.

“Maybe we have a relatively good name in the industry but we need to raise the awareness to the market at large,” commented Julia.“ We are still a slightly hidden group and we need to find ways of communicating ever more effectively to the market.The four star country house market is very competitive and there is alwayspressure on rates, so we need to ensure that we are able to get our own unique message to market.”

“Absolutely”, agreed Douglas,“and we have plans and strategies that we are implementing to achieve this.We need to look at how we maximise the potential of the internet as best as we can. One of the reasons that maybe you get such conflicting views on the market today is that so many people book
late now and it makes forecasting far more difficult. People are able to do this as the internet has changed habits.

At the end of the day,we have a product that we are very proud of and believe appeals to ourcustomer.We want to constantly make sure that we are improving and setting higher levels of standards that our success will continue and evolve.”

As I left, I reflected that Hand Picked’s success is probably also rooted in Julia’s very straight forward approach.There were no false promises or hype; just a genuine desire to build something that the customer enjoyed and desired. If this is the core focus, it is perhaps unsurprising that the hotel group has been so successful.

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