Kids' corner

Half-term week at the end of October was a re-run of the original August opening of Fowey Hall, albeit it on a smaller scale.

Eight rooms in a converted stable block - which should have been ready when Fowey Hall opened but had to be delayed because of problems with builders - were opened for the October holiday, bringing the total number of rooms to 26. And they were finished just in time: during the 10-day period, including weekends, the hotel was 88% full.

With hindsight, opening the rooms in two stages was a blessing in disguise. Following a hectic start, the team now knows what it is doing, and the lessons learnt in August have helped iron out blips in October.

"Staff were thrown in at the deep end when we opened," says co-director Nicholas Dickinson. "During September, which was quieter, we had time to plan for the new rooms. It still put strain on our resources, particularly in areas such as room service, where staff were going over to the new rooms in howling gales, but the difference was that this time 80% of the people knew what they were doing, whereas in August 20% did."

Along with the new rooms, Fowey Hall has also gained a covered swimming pool and a new brasserie called Palm Court.

The 40ft pool, which cost £250,000, is a bright, warm facility in the grounds of Fowey Hall. It has no changing rooms or toilets - guests have to make a dash across the car park in dressing gowns - but to turn it into a full facility would have doubled the cost.

In many hotels, guests book on the basis of facilities being available, but rarely use them. At Fowey, with the emphasis on children, this will not be the case. Half-term saw the pool full of excited children, while their parents relaxed in loungers on the poolside.

Informal dining area

The 20-seat Palm Court brasserie aims to offer a less formal dining experience to long-staying guests. It is another important feature for the hotel's core family audience.

"We discourage children from eating in the dining room, as this is parent time," says Dickinson. "Even so, there are parents who want to eat early with their children or who have older children. Palm Court is for them."

The menu in Palm Court offers light main courses and snacks. Dickinson hopes this will also attract more custom from locals who may still view Fowey Hall as an austere and expensive anomaly in a small fishing village.

This highlights one of the problems facing Luxury Family Hotels. Catering for upmarket clients and their offspring is a good niche, but, for the most part, business coincides with holiday periods, leading to enormous peaks and troughs in trading.

At Fowey Hall, sales during the first half of October reached only £10,711, putting the year-to-date total £25,954 down on budget. During the second half of October, in which half-term fell, sales of £44,902 put Fowey back on target, bringing the year-to-date total to £205,025 - not far short of the budget of £208,209.

From the end of half-term until Christmas, Fowey expects to run at only 20% occupancy, achieving sales of £35,000. But during the 10 days of the festive season sales are forecast to reach £80,000.

Such roller-coaster trading is not only frustrating for the directors, it is also problematic in terms of staff rotas. Fowey Hall employs 15 full-time staff, giving a weekly wage bill of about £4,000. Weekly sales average £5,000-£7,000. That means that, depending on the time of the year, Fowey sails close to the wind in profitability terms, recording a loss during very quiet weeks.

One option is to lay off staff during quiet times, but this carries a high risk of not getting them back when they are needed. It also raises an important question: how do you deliver a consistent product when staff are constantly changing?

The immediate challenge is to widen the net to fill up the leaner times and establish a more even trading graph. One strategy is to woo local corporates, by convincing them that Fowey is not full of screaming kids, particularly mid-week, and can offer a comfortable meeting room.

At the weekend, Dickinson is not yet convinced that Fowey is exploiting its full potential as a holiday destination. The biggest problem is location. The other properties in the Luxury Family Hotel stable are all within two to three hours' drive from London. But Fowey is just too far away for the majority of Londoners to drive for a weekend. Customers are more likely to come from Bristol, Taunton, Plymouth and Exeter.

But this is a longer-term issue. In the short term, Fowey Hall is counting down to its first Christmas and New Year. Once this is over, Dickinson can plan ahead for the future.

Next visit to Fowey Hall: 14 January, including a review of the Christmas and New Year trading