Blind ambitions
"We do not want to be known as the blind hotel. The AA rates our quality standards and we run the hotels on a commercial basis." James McGee, the Irish-born hotel operations manager for Action for Blind People (AFBP), knows it is essential to stick to sound business principles.
It's an approach that has helped the charity provide blind and partially sighted people with holiday choice. Its other duties are to assist blind people in finding work, housing and to provide information support. It has been able to offer a choice of four hotels since 1999, when AFBP took over the management of the Cliffden Hotel in Teignmouth, Devon, and Windermere Manor in the Lake District from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (GDBA).
The GDBA had had trouble making the hotels pay their way. According to a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, between them they were losing £1.6m annually. It's a sensitive situation and McGee diplomatically declines to comment on the article or the arrangements made between the two charities, saying only that the two chief executives worked together to find the solution.
The AFBP had already experienced the difficulties of running hotels. McGee was brought in five years ago by the charity in an effort to make its original two hotels - the Russell Hotel near Bognor Regis, West Sussex, and the Lauriston Hotel in Weston-super-Mare, Avon - more commercial.
"The two hotels were running at a loss. You get people working in the voluntary sector who believe passionately in what they do, but sometimes they do not run the business commercially," says McGee, who had worked extensively in hotels including Jurys Doyle and Flemmings in London and Château Hotels of France prior to joining the charity.
McGee brought in front of house computer systems to manage occupancy and rates. General managers can now tap into daily profit-and-loss accounts if necessary. Today, repeat business is more than 50% annually and last year, with only three hotels open, there was an 86% bed (rather than room) occupancy.
Financially, the hotels show operating profit, but in the past two years, central office costs, building work and refurbishment costs show expenditure exceeding revenue. In 1999, revenue of £855,000 was offset by expenditure of £1.252m. In 2000, with one hotel closed, revenue was £834,000, while costs totalled £1.229m.
But things are set to improve. In 2001, McGee estimates turnover will reach £1.7m with "a slight deficit because the Russell Hotel is closed [for building works] and the Cliffden did not open until May". He expects it will take until 2002-2003 to "reach income of £2.17m with surplus from all hotels that will contribute to the charity".
The measure of McGee's success in stemming the losses and putting the hotels on the road to profit was recognised when AFBP's chief executive, Stephen Remington, did the deal with the GDBA.
"We would not have got two more hotels if it wasn't clear we were on the right track with the first two," he observes.
Part of the difficulty for the GDBA seems to have been the fact the hotels were small, thus limiting their revenue-generating capacity. McGee has rectified this. Cliffden Hotel reopened in May following an 18-month closure to add 22 bedrooms to the property at a cost of £2m. With 42 bedrooms, McGee believes the hotel is more financially viable.
Windermere Manor has 18 bedrooms, a self-contained six-bedroom house and planning permission to add a further 10 bedrooms to the original hotel. There are plans to carry out the extension, but not until the AFBP's current project is complete.
That project is the plan to create the first purpose-built hotel for blind and partially sighted people on the site of the Russell Hotel. The hotel, which closed at the beginning of January, has been demolished and the builders are now on-site and due to complete a new 42-bedroom hotel by August 2002, representing an investment of £4.5m.
The Lauriston was improved in 1999, with new facilities built for guide dogs and three bedrooms added to bring the total to 37. Once Windermere Manor is finished, therefore, the programme of investment in the hotels will be complete.
With the hotels on the road to recovery, McGee is focusing on telling more people about them. Only 0.02% of the two million registered blind and partially sighted people in the UK have been to stay at the hotels. According to the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), some 4,000 people are informed monthly that they have sight difficulties. While this includes those needing to wear spectacles, a percentage of those will lose their sight. The misfortune of others means there is a growing market for McGee.
The charity has 10,500 names on its database and there are more than 600 blind associations throughout the UK. But the charity is not confining itself just to this market. Recently, a group of 22 Swedish guests stayed and the organisation is targeting charities in the USA, Germany, Denmark and Italy.
Design for blind people
The hotels are designed to assist blind and partially sighted guests in a subtle manner, says McGee. To a sighted person, the dado rail is there for effect, but the blind guest can use it as a guide to their room.
Signs in the hallway and room numbers are in Braille, as are key rings. The doorways have dark frames against light walls so partially sighted guests can see them more readily. In the bedrooms, telephones have special large number buttons and radios have yellow control buttons - yellow is the last colour a person with failing sight loses. There are walk-in showers in some rooms and at the pool in the leisure centre, the tiles are textured around the edge of the water.
Travel can be the primary hassle for blind guests, and the hotels all have links with their nearest airports and local train stations. Guests are met and taken to the hotels if required. On arrival, all guests are shown to their room and given a verbal geography of that room. Room attendants are issued with strict instructions not to move things within the room so blind guests will not "lose" something and have to call for sighted assistance.
In the restaurant, the menus are in Braille and staff use the face of a clock as an analogy when placing things in front of the guest. For example, salt and pepper may be at "noon", while potatoes are at "three" and green beans at "nine".
Dealing with blind guests means more staff than usual are required and McGee estimates that staff costs run to 45-46% of turnover. At the 42-bedroom Cliffden Hotel there are 26 members of staff. That includes the kennel staff, who attend to the needs of the four-legged guests, and the excursion staff who take guests out shopping or to a local visitor attraction for the day. At Windermere Manor there are qualified staff running activities such as tandem cycling, water skiing, sailing and rock climbing.
At Windermere and Cliffden, guests pay £259 a week for dinner, bed and breakfast, while at the Lauriston, which does not have leisure facilities, the rate is £238. The rates are rarely discounted and any sighted guests must pay VAT on the regular rate. All the hotels close for three weeks in January to give staff a holiday and enable minor repairs and refurbishment to be done.
As getting blind people into work is another core goal of the charity, there are blind people working within the hotels division. "We encourage blind people to work in the hotels - the accounts of the Lauriston Hotel are all done by a blind lady, who is fantastic," says McGee.
Setting and maintaining high standards was one of the key elements for McGee when he arrived. To quantify the standards of service, he asked the AA to judge the hotels according to a 100-point quality assurance standard. Quarterly inspections last year resulted in the Lauriston receiving an 86% rating, while Windermere Manor got 96%. Once the work at the Russell has been completed, McGee will ask the AA to rate the hotels within its star system.
The next two years will continue to challenge McGee and his teams, but he does not rule out more development once the planned refurbishment and building works are complete. "The geography needs to be right and the property needs 40-50 bedrooms. We'll have to see what happens, but I wouldn't rule out further expansion," he says.
Visual awareness tips
1 Always introduce yourself to a blind person - they can't see your nametag.
2 Don't use directions such as "over there"; it may seem obvious but it's really easy to do.
3 Always talk to the person, not their guide dog
4 Don't pass a blind person in the corridor without offering a verbal greeting. They can feel you walk past and not only is it rude, it can be frightening for them too.
5 When serving someone at a table, ask if they would like to be told where things are, then use the clock face approach to help them build up a picture in their minds.
6 Always tell the person what is on their plate and where it is.
7 Room attendants shouldn't move things when cleaning the room as it can confuse and embarrass the guest when they have to ask for help.
Action for Blind People offers visual awareness training for groups. For more information contact James McGee at the Lauriston Hotel on tel: 01934 620758.
Dogs and blind people
The hotels run by Action for Blind People all cater for the guide dogs used by their guests. Every room has a dog bed and feeding bowls, and kennel-approved dog food is stocked. There are kennel staff and a "spend" area for the animals to use. Staff will take the dogs out in the evening if needed when a guest has retired. About 42% of guests come with dogs, but not all blind people use animals to help them get around, preferring a cane, or a sighted partner instead.
What the law says
Under the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) all businesses will have to provide equal access and quality of service to people with disabilities. The law, which comes into force in October 2004, requires companies to make reasonable adjustments to buildings. There are no specific criteria for blind or visually impaired people, but James McGee, operations director for Action for Blind People, suggests the following:
Dado rails to guide blind guests.
Changing the carpet design near staircases to help visually impaired guests.
Talking clocks and lifts.
Thorough staff training.
Action for Blind People
Core activities for blind and partially sighted people: finding jobs and housing; providing holiday opportunities; information and advice; providing financial assistance
Information line: 020 7635 4800
Hotels: 37-bedroom Lauriston Hotel, Weston-Super-Mare; 42-bedroom Russell Hotel (closed until August 2002), Bognor Regis; 24-bedroom Windermere Manor Hotel, Windermere; 42-bedroom Cliffden Hotel, Teignmouth
Hotel operations manager: James McGee
Hotel turnover (not all open every year):
1999: £855,000; 2000: £834,000
2001 (forecast): £1.7m
2002 (forecast): £2.17m
