French

CAREFULLY thought-out and properly done, food festivals can create an enormous financial boost to any business. They may also offer more long-term benefits by helping to raise the profile of your business for many months after the event.

But a poorly researched, ill-conceived promotion serving gimmicky food that is not true to its origins is likely to scare customers away.

Earlier this year, a fortnight of gastronomic exchanges between the Selsdon Park hotel, Croydon, and l'Hôtel du Parc in Hardelot, near Le Touquet, celebrated the official opening of the Channel Tunnel. The partnership has led to other joint marketing initiatives and plans for the future, but it hasn't all been plain sailing.

Selsdon Park hosted a French food festival and travelled to France to hold a British festival there. This is how they did it.

DIARY OF ANGLO-FRENCH FOOD FESTIVAL Summer 1993

The food festival was the brainchild of public relations consultant Jeffrey Rayner of Intercommunication in London. Rayner proposed the idea to Francis Lesur, owner of l'Hôtel du Parc, as part of a wider programme of promotional activities for the two-year-old golfing hotel on the north coast of France. L'Hôtel du Parc already has strong connections with the UK: last year 39% of its guests were British.

1 November 1993

Rayner's recommendations are accepted. The first step is to find a partner hotel in England which will be suitable to link up with l'Hôtel du Parc.

As well as looking for a hotel which is interested in raising its culinary profile, the French see a golfing hotel as providing an obvious link. The 170-bedroom Selsdon Park hotel, 13 miles from the centre of London is approached.

14 January 1994

The first meeting takes place between Rayner and Selsdon Park's managing director, Michael Sharp, who immediately takes to the idea. The festival will be the first link-up with a foreign hotel that the privately owned Selsdon Park has been involved with. Sharp had been managing director for under a year and believes the festival will fit in with the hotel's new energetic marketing policy.

21 February 1994

Lesur visits the Selsdon Park for the first time to look around. He is satisfied that the right hotel had been chosen to link with l'Hôtel du Parc, and more meetings between the two hotels' chefs, food and beverage managers, and public relations/marketing teams are arranged.

That's when the real planning starts with the two sides deciding the festival will run over a two-week period at the end of April and beginning of May. The first week will see three or four chefs from Selsdon Park operating a British menu at l'Hôtel du Parc and, after a week's break, two or three chefs from Hardelot will cook a French menu in Croydon.

2-3 March

Financial arrangements are confirmed: each hotel will pay the costs of all activities on their side of the Channel.

While there will be no problem in selecting a French wine list to accompany the French menu at Selsdon Park, it is decided that New World wines will be served with the British menu in Hardelot. But some English wine does make the grade with a tasting of a selection of wines planned before the British gala dinner.

6 March

David Garside, previously executive sous chef at the Royal Garden Hotel, London, takes over as executive chef at Selsdon Park, heading a brigade of 21 chefs, catering for a 150-seat restaurant and around 350 covers a week in banqueting. His first task is to come up with ideas for the British menus, which is to include a press lunch for 25 British and French journalists on the first day of the promotion and a gala dinner for 150. On each day of the festival there will be different lunch and dinner menus.

Garside is concerned at the way the French will react to the British food. "I feel there is a barrier to overcome," he says.

29 March

A marketing and public relations meeting takes place at Selsdon Park. Hoverspeed has agreed to support the festival, which will help with transport of hotel staff backwards and forwards across the Channel, as well as visiting journalists.

31 March

Head chef of l'Hôtel du Parc, Arnaud Pannier, and a couple of his staff visit Selsdon Park. They look around the kitchens and realise they will have a bigger job on their hands than the British. The French operation is much smaller - a brigade of eight chefs cook for the 110-seat restaurant in the 81-bedroom hotel.

14 April

Garside and three of his chefs visit l'Hôtel du Parc to discuss the British festival in Hardelot with their French counterparts. They talk for six hours, through an interpreter. One fundamental conclusion is that the British menu would be far too heavy for the French, particularly at dinner. The French chefs point out that the French like to eat their main meal at lunch-time. As a result the British menu is scaled down.

Garside goes to great lengths to explain some dishes that the French have never heard of, such as haggis. He works out which ingredients will be cheaper to take from the UK, instead of buying them in France. Back at the Selsdon Park he arranges with his suppliers for items such as haggis, black pudding, parsnips, lamb, and Scottish raspberries to be exported direct to the French hotel.

25 April - 1 May

The British Week at l'Hôtel du Parc gets under way with a press lunch on the first day for English and French journalists. The French contingent is far better represented - both regional radio and television turn up.

THE FIRST MEAL

The British meal is smoked salmon with coriander, quail eggs and Dublin Bay prawns; crab cakes with cabbage and mustard sauce; fillet of beef brodequin (fillet of beef, wrapped in Yorkshire pudding); rhubarb flummery with Scottish shortbread; and to round off - Stilton cheese. Dessert gets the best reviews.

Most of the week runs smoothly, with 25-30 diners (about 25% of guests) choosing the British menu in preference to the hotel's à la carte. However, problems arise with supplies of crab and lobster the day before the gala dinner, which is to be attended by 72 guests. The only locally available supplies cost £23 per lb, compared with £6.50 per lb back home. It was considered more economically viable for a member of staff at the Selsdon Park to buy the crab and lobster in England and rush them across the Channel.

The press and publicity for Selsdon Park in France is excellent, with French food and wine writers arriving from Paris for the gala dinner and two items on television. Garside is even invited along to the regional television studios to prepare a couple of his dishes in front of the cameras.

BACK ON THIS SIDE OF THE CHANNEL 9 - 14 May

The French Festival begins with the arrival of journalists for the second press lunch. Once again a French fascination for food is shown by the presence of a far greater number of reporters from across the water. Today they tuck into salade de pigeonneau (warm pigeon breast salad), filet de barbue aux pointes d'asperges (brill with asparagus tips), carré d'agneau rôti au miel (best end of lamb roasted with honey) cräme du Cap Blanc Nez (a white cheese made from cow's milk) and croustillant aux fraises (individual strawberry sweet pastry desserts).

NERVES

The rest of the week is a very busy one for the French chefs, with 100-200 lunches and up to 100 dinners being served daily. Some of the dishes prove to be a little too complicated for the number of covers involved and by the end of the week nerves are in a raw state. When, on Friday, they are asked to move out of hotel bedrooms and into staff accommodation because of a sudden influx of guests, the French chefs walk out. Garside and his brigade are left to pick up the pieces for the rest of the day.

On the last day the French chefs are persuaded to return to prepare the gala dinner for 70 guests, bringing to an end the two-pronged Anglo-French festival.

Despite some fraught moments, both hotels regarded the festival as a success, particularly in terms of the marketing opportunities it provided and the boost in morale it created among staff on both sides of the Channel. It was not a great commercial success though, costing l'Hôtel du Parc FFr40,000 (around £4,750) in publicity and advertising and Selsdon Park £15,000 to mount. Despite this there are plans to repeat the event, probably during the early part of 1995 and detailed planning will start after Christmas.

One of the most important results is the new relationship which has been built between the two hotels. This month a reciprocal discount scheme comes into force where guests from both hotels will be offered a 10% reduction to stay at the other property. Such co-operation would not have been possible if the festivals hadn't taken place, says Selsdon Park marketing manager Caroline Streek.

Also in July and August, a mailshot to 1.2 million homes has been arranged through direct mail, local and national newspapers. A competition with a local paper will offer a VIP trip to France starting with breakfast at the Selsdon Park, travel to and weekend stay at l'Hôtel du Parc, ending with lunch back at Croydon.

Staff exchanges have also been arranged between different departments within the hotels and there are plans for links on golf, with the possibility of an Anglo-French tournament.

Garside, however, has since left the Selsdon Park for pastures new and will not therefore be involved in any future festivals at the hotel. n