Profit prompts reflection
October has been the busiest month of the year since 1953, without exception. This is in spite of the bombing of Libya's Colonel Gaddafi in October 1986, the great storm in October 1987 and the stock market crash of October 1987.
In October 1953, our takings were £11,077 with a net profit of £2,530 (23%). Room occupancy was 96%, exactly the same as in 1994, and food and beverage covers were similar.
But our takings in 1994 were £460,000 - that is, 41 times greater. Does this indicate that in 41 years the pound has become 41 times less valuable? Is this what we call inflation? Not entirely. It is inflation, plus the "middleman factor", plus VAT.
In 1953, neither credit cards nor VAT were invented and hotels never gave commission or representation fees to anybody for any reason. Customers had a good deal - a double bedroom at the Goring that costs £182 today could be had for £2.2s.6d in 1953, and we made more profit in 1953.
Everything always happens in October, which makes it a month when unnecessary distractions are least welcome. This must be why I received more junk mail this October.
Middlemen are always the top offenders in this category. In one day I received four letters from consultants offering their services regarding BS5750 or Investors in People (IIP) certification. I am apparently in grave danger of losing my marketing edge if I do not consider achieving one of these quality awards pretty smartly.
I understand this, because the time could be approaching when non-certified hotels will simply be excluded from large corporation and Government contracts. But surely quality recognition schemes were designed to enhance standards of service and technical skills for the benefit of our staff and customers, not as a means by which we could steal a marketing advantage over our competitors?
In my view, BS5750 is wrong for our industry. Too rigorously prescribed and documented methods for imposing quality of service in hotels has, in certain cases, the opposite effect to that intended. It is the freshness and spontaneity of true service from the heart (not the textbook) that is most appreciated by the customer.
Our personnel manager Shara Ross is at present researching IIP through a consultancy that has a fee of about £9,000, paid half by me and half by our local training and enterprise council (Centec), which is also the certification body. Goring hotel compliance costs would be about the same again.
The IIP recipe simply formalises systems for staff morale boosting, skills assessment and motivation. It requires total involvement from the top, even to the extent of presenting all staff with the company's business plan. Proper records must be kept with a long-term maintenance element built in.
The principles behind IIP cannot be faulted, but many Goring staff believe that for us to go down this path could be an expensive and time-consuming way of simply standing still, especially as I already receive letters every morning from guests expressing their gratitude for the thoughtfulness and efficiency of our staff.
We achieve this naturally, without excess paperwork or "consultant speak", and I defy any London hotel to achieve a lower staff turnover than the Goring.
