Malmaison

What is the current state of the hotel market in England and Scotland? I think the industry has taken a bit of battering at the moment. I think the banking world has been shut for business in a lot of ways. We are in a situation where we have to watch how we spend our money. We are also being very careful at this point in time.On the back of the Marks and Spencer’s results yesterday, that is going to give the UK a big scare, as they are a pretty strong barometer here. I think we have to be prudent. I think we have to sell and be aware of what’s out there, at the same time it’s business as usual.

What are your interior influences? Tell us more about your designers and feel of the hotel? I decided to move all the design in-house and I did that because it was getting to the stage where we had interior designers who were working for us and thought they knew what was Malmaison and tried to create their own culture through that which wasn’t working. I now have a design director in-house who works closely with me and four other girls in the office. So I now hear everything, see everything and approve everything. You have been a respected hotelier across the UK and the rest of Europe for a considerable time, tell me some of your greatest challenges to date? The hotel business in 1994 was very bland and overpriced, full of very underwhelming hotels.You couldn’t even get a decent meal or a good drink in most of them or they were very designer led or member led. Malmaison were a strong brand that had lots of things in place before I took control of it but they wanted to put some of the razzle dazzle back into it. I think the challenge was that it had lost a little of the original soul it had, and some of the key people that made it work. A lot of people, who had been there at the start of the business, were not there anymore. New people had been brought in either from their own businesses or from other larger hotels and didn’t quite understand the boutique hotel concept. So for me the challenge was bringing in a new fresh team and implementing a growth strategy and the process of building an equilibrium. I decided to build over the years a very robust people development plan. We have set targets for the hotel to grow from seven to 26 hotels and 30 next year having bought Hotel de Vin. My main aim is to grow the two businesses simultaneously, with one management team. It’s funny because Hotel du Vin actually opened the same time, same year and month as Malmaison in1994 so it’s quite interesting that we’re on the same team now, as we could have been competitors.

How do you think we can encourage enterprise and increase hoteliers in the UK? I think we should take inspiration from the likes of Jumariah, Hotel du Vin and the Firmdale group in London. You need to start off by getting the first one absolutely right; like we did in Edinburgh, then roll it out progressively with the support of a good brand. There’s a lot of solvent funds and vulture funding schemes out there, so it’s not the time to be talking about bad footed investment as the world is in a bit of turmoil at the moment. There is a lot of venture capitalists that like what we are doing and like one-off hotels that are beginning to grow. It really is all about your first one and not just focusing soley on design. Too often hotels hide behind the veneer of design and can’t even get service right! You have to overplay service at the right price to get the right investment in return- it’s a beneficial circle.

What’s you’re largest outgoing as a hotel group? Undoubtedly labour is your largest financial cost -you’re only as good as your weakest link. Be wise with your finances but realise that it’s money you have to spend. I like to see it as an investment, not a cost.

What’s your main clientele at Malmaison and what demographic were you initially looking to attract? I think we have definitely attracted who we thought we would, as it’s been 14 years for us now. We were initially aiming at the 28-35 year old who were driving around in a BMW as opposed to an Aston Martin. Equally though we are finding we are attracting a lot of couples and even people celebrating their 70 year old birthday, so there’s no strict demographic anymore. Our initial target was the 25- 38. I think what’s happening is that 10 years on, they are still coming back and that’s going to change our demographic the more that happens.

The Malmaison hotels have hosted many events and celebrity parties, tell us some of your more regular celebrity clients? We do seem to be very popular with the music business. If something is going on in a football team, a new player joining, or a golf tournament, we are often chosen to hold the event or we will have a group stay with us. In fact I’m driving to Scotland now to get ready as we are holding a Malmaison gathering for people in the music business tomorrow who have stayed with us or know us. We have had everyone from Kylie to Stereophonics to Neil Diamond stay with us so tomorrow I’m taking a lot of the celebrities out golfing in Scotland to say thanks. We had the ex-manager of Newcastle United who stayed with us for over a year, so it’s the kind of place people like to comeback to.

What are the most crucial elements for a successful hotel? It’s about great hospitality. We have always aimed to develop the hotels into places where you can stay for a year if needs be and still not be bored with us. We are more than just a design hotel, it has to be about service too. You need to be prepared to work long hours and make sure your hotel concept remains very focused.