BIL overhauls Thistle senior management

Thistle Hotels has axed four general manager posts at some of its key London hotels as part of an extensive restructuring programme that is being rolled out under its new ownership.

The group, which was taken over last month by Singaporean investment company BIL International, has introduced the concept of cluster management across its portfolio of London hotels. Under the new regime, five existing general managers have taken over responsibility for groups of properties, while operations managers within the hotels will be taking over the day-to-day running of the properties.

A similar scheme was introduced by Forte Hotels six years ago when it replaced its general managers with regional general managers.

Thistle's London hotels that have been excluded from the restructure include airport hotels and those that are managed rather than owned by Thistle, such as the Lancaster Gate and Kensington Park hotels.

A spokesman for Thistle Hotels said that some of the general managers whose jobs had been made redundant had moved to new posts within the company but four had left.

"There are no more redundancies planned," the spokesman added. "Out of a total of 6,000 employees, there have only been eight."

Last month also saw the ousting of Thistle's chief executive, Ian Burke, and three other executive directors.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 19 - 25 June 2003