Tudor Hopkins
I get up at 6.30am and start the day with a filter coffee and a cigarette. I know it's bad for me, but I don't care. Then I hop on my black, brown and cream Vespa and ride through Regent's Park to work. It's the Cadillac of Vespas. And driving through the park is a pleasure, because there are normally about 60 police horses there being exercised, which is quite a sight.
At about 8am I arrive at work, about an hour before the rest of my team. The first thing I do is check my e-mails to see what's come in from Los Angeles overnight. K-West works very closely with the music industry, particularly EMI Universal Music and Picture Studios in California. We're one of their five chosen hotels for London, so we have to keep in close contact. What's also great about working with the music industry is that - war or no war - the bands keep touring.
At 9am I meet with the general manager to discuss any VIP arrivals. VIPs tend to be quite high maintenance, so we need to be specific in our treatment of each one. We've had people from Big Brother, Mick Hucknall of Simply Red, Moby, Badly Drawn Boy - and we quite regularly have Blue and Atomic Kitten.
The BBC also use us as a venue for interviews, so we have to discuss who is coming in and what rooms they want to use. The hotel used to be a BBC studio, so we even have some directors who come in and want to do an interview where their office used to be.
Mid-morning is also a good time to say goodbye to guests and get some feedback from them about their stay. One guest said our DVD selection was a bit under-stocked, so we went ballistic and now we have over 200.
I also spend a lot of time with my team during the morning to look at rates, appointments and any new deals we might be working on. We have not been hit as hard as some hotels in London, because our business is very much from the music industry, domestic business and leisure travel. We can't be as flexible with rates as hotels like the Hyatts and the Hiltons, however, so we need to spend a lot of time building personal relationships with our guests. I regularly visit the USA, going away for about a week six times a year.
The team and I also work hard on promotions. On St Valentine's Day the hotel was entirely booked up - except the single-occupancy rooms, of course - and we put roses on the beds, glitter on the floors and flowers everywhere. We made more money in that weekend than in any other of the hotel's history.
Lunchtime, around 1pm, is either a sandwich at my desk, with the team or with a client. I normally entertain clients one evening and one lunchtime a week.
The afternoon is always varied. I make sure I talk to our European sales manager, who is based in Brussels, at least once a day and I like to visit the spa at least once a week - all in the name of product testing, of course.
At about 3pm New York wakes up, so I like to talk to some similar independent hotels over there. It makes sense to partner up with similarly minded hotels and mutually recommend each other.
At the moment I'm working on the complete redesign of our website, too, so I'll spend some time every day making sure it's on track. It's a sexy site but I also like to think it's user-friendly. It's a big part of my life.
Home time is usually about 7pm, unless I go to the gym or am entertaining. I jump back on my Vespa and go home to cook, which I'm not bad at. My favourite dish was given to me by an international US lawyer and it's steak marinated in honey, Tabasco, soy sauce, ginger and garlic and then quick-fried. It's wild.
Interview by Jessica Gunn
Just a minute…
What's the best thing about your job? Meeting lots of people and getting to travel.
What's the worst thing about your job? Dealing with travel managers who only care about bottom-line costs and not the guest experience. They take the theatre out of the job.
Most embarrassing work moment? While working at another hotel, I hosted a dinner party for VIPs, including an ex-prime minister and other important political figures. We had just finished a refurbishment of the hotel and were really talking it up. Then, just after dinner, the ceiling cracked above the dinner table and water and excrement started pouring through.
Factfile
K-West Hotel
Richmond Way, London W14 0AX
Tel: 020 7674 1000
Rooms: 222, including six K-Suites
Rack rate: standard double £193 plus VAT; K-Suite £400 plus VAT
Restaurant: Kanteen
Seats: 70
Bar: K-Lounge
