INTERVIEW
Hotel du Vin hotels feature classic interiors (main pic) while the design of Malmaison is darker and harder edged (left)
“EUROPE’S FINE BUT IT’S VERY FRAGMENTED AND YOU’RE HAVING TO JUMP FROM PLACE TO PLACE. AMERICA IS THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY”
TIME TO GROW “If two years ago was about cost cut- ting and cost control, and last year was about revenue generation and aggres- sive sales plans, next year is about consolidating the brands back into the marketplace efficiently, coupled with the start of growth again,” says Cook. For Hotel du Vin, the expansion plans
focus on the UK. “We’re looking at ways of getting new funding into the business so we can grow Hotel du Vin here,” says Cook. “The hotels are still quite southern-centric and there are still lots of opportunities in the north,” he continues, listing Chester, Durham, Aberdeen and perhaps a second hotel in Edinburgh among the places he’d like to see the brand in. “That’s not discount- ing the fact we’d still like to be in more locations in the south,” he says, adding that Oxford, Chichester, Malborough and Salisbury are still on his radar under the various guises of the du Vin brand. There are also two Hotel du Vins cur-
rently under development. Work is due to start this year on the conversion of a former warehouse in Canterbury bought by the company in 2008. “It’ll be a long build, as it’s a wreck,” says Cook, “but we’d like to think it will be open by 2013. It will have 47 bedrooms.” The company also acquired the St
Andrews Golf Hotel in Fife, Scotland, in 2008, and Cook hopes that the proc- ess of converting it into a “fully blown 21 bedroom Hotel du Vin” will be com- pleted at some point during 2011.
26 Hotel du Vin could also be expanded
via the Pub du Vin concept, says Cook. Pub du Vin is described as a ‘traditional British pub with a Hotel du Vin twist’ and serves traditional pub grub and local ales. The brand is currently oper- ating in Brighton and Birmingham. The Brighton Pub du Vin opened in 2008, and has 11 bedrooms attached, while the Birmingham Pub du Vin is a stan- dalone pub and opened in 2009. “I believe the du Vin brand has huge elasticity,” says Cook. “Pub du Vin has worked very well for us in Brighton and I think the opportunity is there to grow the brand. I couldn’t take a 45 bed- room Hotel du Vin to Chichester or Cirencester, for example, but I could take a 15 to 20 bedroom Pub du Vin to those towns.” Cook is also in talks about taking the Hotel du Vin bistro out of the hotels and on to the high street, and is currently under negotiations to open a bistro in the City of London. As for Malmaison, there isn’t much
scope for expansion within the UK, says Cook, although he says he would like the brand to have a bigger London pres- ence and would buy a larger property in the capital “if the deal was right”. The company is also looking at two leases in the UK – a 108 bedroom hotel in Bath and a 90 bedroom hotel in Dundee. Cook and his team are currently negoti-
ating various operating and management agreements in Paris, Venice and Rome, although he sees the main opportunity for growth as being in the US.
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“Europe’s fine, but the trouble is that
it’s very fragmented and you’re having to jump from place to place,” he says.
“I think you’ve got to focus on one place, and America is the land of opportunity. “We’d like to start on the east coast.
We’ve got to be in New York – and I think we could open three Malmaisons in New York – and we want to do Boston, Miami, Chicago and Dallas.” So how much would the brand need
to adapt for the US market? “I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to say our brand is resilient in any market, so obviously there would have to be some adap- tation,” says Cook. “I don’t think the look and feel of the bedrooms and pub- lic areas would have to change hugely,
ISSUE 1 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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