The amazing story of Malmaison is that it had gone through the ‘mainstream mangle’ twice in five years. First it was purchased by Wyndham, then sold on to SAS Radisson. These are both large international corporate organisations who are looking down a different end of the telescope to me. The headlines are:

1. PR which had been our core strength had wasted away
   There was nothing for our friends in the press and other opinon-formers and communicators to write about.
2. Value had deteriorated
   Prices had gone up with no added-value to the customer. A current example is the impressive mark-up some chains apply to broadband access. This is seen as transparent rip-off by customers who know how little we pay for it, and it does the industry no favours. I have directed my managers to make no charges: this should be a selling point not a profit opportunity.
3. Service had become a merely a process
   Profit was being achieved through desktop exercises not delivery on the shop floor.
4. Every night away from home is begrudged
   There’s no doubt that we needed to do better!
5. Training was done by consultants
   The same consultants trained my troops on a Tuesday and at Marriot/Hilton using the same material on a Wednesday. What they offered was irrelevant and virtually amounted to robbery: as I said to one, at least Dick Turpin wore a mask.
6. The brand had lost its sense of humour
   There was no cheeky food-and-beverage ad. campaign. Previously one of the Malmaison features, we had been advertising food-and-beverage in a place you would normally find a car ad with strapline puns like: ‘fancy a shank’, ‘salmon don’t rush me’, ‘rock on chicken Dijon’ or my own favourite ‘life is a cabernet’.

So on my return to the brand, there was a lot to do; our recent acquisition of Hotel du Vin will make a major contribution.

The marriage

In October 2004 we acquired Hotel du Vin to make us the largest lifestyle-hotel operator in the uk. The coming together of these two great brands has many benefits, particularly in the back office. In procurement, we’ve become a much bigger customer for everything from capital equipment and energy to laundry and food supplies; for data capture we can have a single, more powerful system. But it is vital that marketing remains separate, because the two groups have to retain their own distinctive tones of voice—something I cannot repeat too often.

The greatest opportunity from the marriage of these two great brands is the much larger nursery that we now have for growing talent from within. We are convinced that for people development and succession planning, the opportunities to fit and grow the skills of our people across a wider and more diverse canvas are spectacular.

What’s the next big thing in our industry?

I am always being asked ‘What’s the next big thing?’ and what people want to hear usually revolves around a design-led innovation of a new look. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the hotel industry needs to wake up and smell the coffee. For the last two decades our industry has been hiding behind the veneer of design, believing that if it looks good in the brochure they will come and believing if it looks good in reality that’s enough.

Our customers have better judgement than we think. Sometimes from bitter experience, they know only too well that startling design and glorious brochures can so easily hide poor service. To my mind the next big thing for our business is to go back to the roots of being true to our collateral and delivering great hospitality. Malmaison and Hotel du Vin are successful because we deliver what it says on the tin, and that is what we must build on: a great-value proposition delivering hospitality on the shop floor.

In 2001 we launched a new central reservation function in Birmingham. In its wilderness years Malmaison had been guilty of wholesaling a retail product and in order to control our own destiny we developed a cro (central reservation organisation) to enhance the function. We said goodbye to revenue managers at unit level and the benefits have been impressive.

The quality of our call-handling and rate-management has improved, the rooms’ departmental profit has grown by four percent in two years and the money saving has been put back to the floor.

As we get bigger—and we are about to go to 27 hotels—the trade press and industry cynics’ view is that my brands will lose their identity and personality as they grow. But we are ready for this and have our strategies in place.

The author

Robert B. Cook has spent the last 20 years developing a career in hotel management with high-profile companies such as Columbus Hotels Group, Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts and Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel. In 1997 he joined Malmaison as opening general manager for Newcastle. He went on to become regional operations director for the group. In 2000, Robert worked with Ken McCulloch and David Coulthard forming the Columbus Hotel in Monte Carlo; he then became Managing Director of Columbus and Dakota Hotel group based in the UK.

In January 2004, he rejoined Malmaison as CEO and when Hotel du Vin joined the ‘family’ in October 2004, Robert became CEO for both brands. Robert’s passionate and exuberant nature is expressed through his ‘hands on’ approach fuelling his visionary growth for Malmaison and Hotel du Vin.This approach to his job and his achievements were recognised in July when he was awarded a prestigious Catey for Manager of the Year for 2006.