INTERVIEW
ROBERT COOK
After surviving the worst of the recession, Malmaisonand Hotel du Vin CEO Robert Cook is ready to grow the group again. He tells Magali Robathan more
f the last three months are anything to go by, I think we’re out of the woods,” says Robert Cook, chief executive of Malmaison and
Hotel du Vin. “We’re cer tainly getting good room rate growth, and the food and beverage side of things is really strong. I feel the worst has passed.” The hotel industry has had a tough
couple of years, and although Malmaison and Hotel du Vin have come through the recession in pretty good shape, Cook admits it’s been a rough ride. Now, however, he’s cautiously opti- mistic, and is champing at the bit to restart the expansion that was put on hold during the downturn. “We’ve got to keep growing,” says
Cook. “It keeps people in our busi- ness and gives them the chance to develop. I get a big kick out of open- ing new hotels and seeing people in our business grow. And it’s impor- tant for us to go international.” Cook has his sights firmly set on America – “the land of opportunity” – and is in negotiations to open Malmaisons in Paris, Venice and Rome, as well as rolling out Hotel du Vin across the UK. Cook’s whole life has been about
hotels – his childhood bedroom was Room 114 at the hotel his parents ran in Aberdeenshire, and after graduat- ing he spent three years with Holiday Inns before joining Ken McCulloch’s Malmaison in 1997. When McCulloch left to launch a new hotel project in Monte Carlo, Cook left with him, before return- ing to Malmaison as CEO in January 2004. In October 2004 Malmaison’s owners MWB bought Hotel du Vin, mak- ing Cook CEO of both brands.
24 “There is no other industry for me,”
says Cook. “I was born in a hotel, I was brought up in one. I know nothing else. I still get up every morning with fire in my belly to make Malmaison and Hotel du Vin as good as they can possibly be. “The things that get me excited are
giving the customer a good time and getting positive feedback. The worst thing ever is when you get a complaint; it’s like an arrow through the heart.”
“Our look and design is very much a statement of who we are. However
we’re not in an industry that should be led by design. We’re in an industry that should be led by hospitality and great people”
SURVIVING THE TOUGH TIMES I last met Cook five years ago. At the time, he’d been CEO of Malmaison for 16 months and was in charge of eight Malmaisons and six Hotel du Vins. Since then, the group has opened a
further four Malmaisons and eight Hotel du Vins and the Pub du Vin concept has launched in Brighton and Birmingham. The expansion was well underway, until the recession hit and the company was forced to concentrate on cost control. One of the first things Cook did in response to the economic downturn
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was to close the company’s head office in London, and move its staff to Malmaison and Hotel du Vin hotels around the country. This, he says, has had unexpected benefits. “It’s saved us money but also got a lot of the sen- ior team immersing themselves in the hotels during a difficult time, which is where they needed to be,” he says. Other savings were made by closing
down the development team, which was no longer needed while the expan- sion was put on hold, and cutting down on energy use at the hotels. “We moved our lighting onto LED systems, which saved quite a bit of money, and we also renegotiated a lot of our procurement,” says Cook. Room rates were discounted and various promotions were launched, with the result that the food and bev- erage side of the business actually grew during 2009 and 2010. This, says Cook, was due largely to two particularly successful promotions: The Two Thousand and Wine promo- tion, which allowed two people to eat in a Malmaison or Hotel du Vin for £29 and the Sunday promotion,
which saw rooms offered for £10 on a Sunday night provided guests spent at least £75 on food and beverage. “Sunday nights became as busy as Saturday nights, and people ended up spending a lot more than £75,” says Cook. “I think the consumer has actually had more money in their back pocket due to interest rates and mor tgage rates falling. We’ve benefited from that, particularly in our food and beverage. “The recession has been tough in that
we haven’t developed and opened new hotels, but we’ve fared pretty well.”
ISSUE 1 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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