Hospitality explosion

Twenty years ago Diane Miller felt she had to leave Glasgow, her birthplace, to make it as a hotelier. So she set off to London and beyond to prove her mettle in the industry.

Miller was leaving behind a city built on heavy industry - the shipyards, in which her father worked; coal; and steel - which appeared to be in terminal decline. But in 1997 she returned, drawn back by the sheer vibrancy of life in her home city and the wealth of opportunities that are opening up in hospitality in Scotland.

"Scotland has transformed itself in the past 20 years from a country that relied predominantly on heavy industry to a very service-orientated country. Tourism and hospitality are very important to Scotland now and many people recognise that," says Miller, now general manager of the 298-bedroom Glasgow Marriott hotel and regional director of Whitbread for the whole of Scotland.

Graduating students these days, she argues, have only to look around them to see some of the best examples of hospitality in the UK. There is no longer any need for ambitious young hoteliers to hotfoot it out of their birthplace in search of quality jobs.

Tourism is the fastest growing industry in Scotland - already bigger than the whisky, oil, car and agricultural industries combined - and offers huge potential for jobs. Over the past 30 years a hard core of hoteliers have worked to overcome the problems of skills shortages, seasonality and remoteness to develop hotels which rank comfortably alongside the best establishments in the world.

It is no coincidence, says Miller, that three of the last five recipients of Caterer & Hotelkeeper's Hotelier of the Year award are from Scottish hotels.

High-profile leaders in the industry are driving up standards in every sector of the market. Increasingly, hoteliers such as Ken McCulloch, founder of the Malmaison chain; Peter Lederer, managing director of Gleneagles Hotel; and Stakis's chief executive David Michels have a wider public profile in the business world, too.

And the industry's commitment to quality goes right through the industry from top-class hotels to the smallest inns. Scottish hoteliers have strongly endorsed their tourist board's decision to introduce a grading system for hotels based almost wholly on quality of service and product.

Scotland's potential has been noticed by many of the national and international hotel groups. For instance Whitbread, the hotels to brewing group, invested £27m in Scotland in the last financial year and will invest £27m more this year, creating 850 jobs in its Travel Inns, Brewers Fayre pubs and growing restaurant groups.

"Whitbread is committed to Scotland because we believe there is a tremendous market here for leisure," says Miller.

When Rocco Forte returned to the UK hotel industry, one of the first deals he signed was to buy the Balmoral hotel, in Edinburgh, signalling to the rest of the UK the importance of the Scottish capital.

And most recently a Texan-based hotel and property group, Patriot American Hospitality, has embarked on a major European push by acquiring McCulloch's Malmaison hotel brand as part of the Arcadian group. Weeks earlier, Turnberry Hotel in Ayrshire was bought by another US hotel company, Starwood Lodging Corporation, owner of the ITT Sheraton and Westin groups.

Other international companies are seeking to increase their portfolios in Scotland. Forte, which used to manage the Balmoral hotel, is now urgently seeking another Edinburgh hotel for its Heritage group. And elsewhere in Scotland it is spending £8m on refurbishing three Posthouse hotels in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Inter-Continental has long been seeking another property in Glasgow.

All this activity means there are more quality opportunities than ever before in Scotland's hotel industry. Not surprisingly, many highly experienced "exiled" Scots, like Miller, are taking the opportunity to return home.

And hotels that have always attracted serious numbers of overseas applicants are inundated, says Terry Waldron, media relations and marketing manager at Gleneagles Hotel. The Irish 28-year-old studied in Edinburgh and put Scotland top of her list when returning to the UK five years ago from the USA. The location and lifestyle were, she admits, as high on her list of reasons as the prestige of Gleneagles.

Commitment to Scotland

"Scotland has a huge number of establishments in which to work. If you choose wisely you can get comparable, if not better, experience than almost anywhere in the world," she says.

Scotland's home-grown hotel companies - Stakis, Scottish Highland Hotels and Macdonald Hotels - may be looking to expand south of the border, but they are all still committed to maintaining a Scottish presence.

"Scotland is a great market and we're keen to increase our portfolio here," said managing director of Scottish Highland Hotels, Paul Murray-Smith. "At our Carlton Highland hotel in Edinburgh we can offer graduates or craftspeople experience on a par with any of the UK or US groups that operate in the city," says Murray-Smith.

Gordon Lyle, human resources director at Stakis, agrees that graduates can now find top-class experience in Scotland, and not just in the Turnberrys and Gleneagles of this world. Stakis, he says, "hires the attitude and trains the skill". It looks for an aptitude for service in its recruits and can promise those who have it experience in all sectors of the business.

"We want to present Stakis as a second-to-none career option," says Lyle. "This is not a naff business to work in."

Macdonald Hotels, which has just announced a £11.5m four-star hotel to be built in Edinburgh, is also determined to present itself as a first-class career choice for ambitious young Scots.

In January it launched its own chef apprentice scheme. Fifteen chefs joined the two-year scheme, which will take them to SVQ level 3 qualification, with full employee status.

"We think this is the only way forward for the company and the industry as a whole," says Gaynor Gillespie, Macdonald Hotels' group training and personnel manager.

Routes south and overseas will always be tempting for ambitious young hoteliers. But do not discount the opportunities on your doorstep. Miller's experience in coming home says it all: "Having spent years in London saying hospitality should be taken more seriously, I sincerely think it is here."