Beefing up the banqueting business

Last time I spoke about refurbishment works we plan to complete this year, but now we have tasks of a different variety in our midst.

The main drive within our company is to improve F&B profitability. Profits range from not much up to 40%. We are not doing very well in this respect, being hampered by an enormous payroll cost.

So, first we need to look at where our profits come from. We have a profit and loss statement completed for each department, but this is not always 100% accurate. It is left to the individual as to how the payroll costs of the back of house staff are broken down into the different operating outlets and this depends also on the type of restaurants and bars in every hotel.

But whichever way this is done, it soon becomes evident that the conference and banqueting department is the big profit-maker here.

The banqueting director became ill more than a year ago, and we have not seen him since, so last year things got rather tough, leaving the staff overworked and demotivated.

Last October we hired Heike Stroehman to take up the challenge. She had been the assistant at the Grand hotel and knows the market very well. Her main job was to increase revenues and start to form a well-trained and motivated sales force and, with the help of the new F&B manager, look at operations, costs and procedures.

The staff issue was quickly resolved, as they were happy to have someone to lead them.

The most important issue is to increase sales, as we lost business in the late '90s because of hotel refurbishment. We have produced a new brochure and an action plan has been worked on which will increase the profile of the business in the local marketplace, since revenues either come that way or through the group sales department further afield.

Needless to say, mega incentives bring huge business for banqueting as well as rooms, and there are the usual squabbles as to when and how much space can be sold by banquets direct, or needs to be held out for that big business that will also fill the rooms.

DAGMARWOODWARD is general manager of the Hotel Inter-Continental Paris

Next diary from Dagmar Woodward: 19 April