DELIVERY OLD COURSE HOTEL
Stephen Carter has just taken on the role of general manager at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews
How do you improve the hotel that’s just been named Scotland’s best? You get Carter.
Stephen Carter, newly-appointed general manager of the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, is preparing for his (probably) last gig in a 40-year hospitality career
BY KEVIN O’SULLIVAN S
tephen Carter is one of those rare breeds in hos- pitality: someone who’s worked for many years in the industry (surviving to
tell the tale), who clearly relishes each new day and is regarded by his peers as a great authority in the business. You get the feeling that when Carter speaks, people listen.
He’s also a man of unimpeachable good taste and, it turns out, ritual. “It’s Friday afternoon, time for a sherry,” he exclaims as we begin our conversation, with a barely- disguised hint of glee in his voice. Carter has just been installed as
the new general manager at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, and it’s a role he seems ideally suited to: polite to a fault, an old school tra- ditionalist (although he insists ‘old
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school’ is just plain good manners), and a steady hand. It is also quite possibly the last role he will take on in a career that has spanned nearly 40 years, and includes being named Hotelier of the Year by Te Caterer in 2011 (which is the proudest moment of his career, he later tells me). “I thought Cameron House might
be but here I am starting at the Old Course,” he says. “Never say never, but I think it might be. Yes, you’ve heard it here first.” Carter is on a fixed two-year con-
tract at the Old Course Hotel, and admits he is somewhat unsure as to what exactly he can do to improve the five-red-AA-star hotel, which
has just been named Scotland’s Best Hotel at the prestigious Scottish En- tertainment & Hospitality Awards. “I wasn’t sure I was doing myself
any favours coming to a hotel that is already succeeding,” he says. “But I think over the next period we’ve got to grow occupancy, and to develop our people, and we’ve got to remain top of our game. We have some ex- citing plans in the hatching, which include extending our leisure facili- ties and looking at aspects of refur- bishment. We haven’t yet defined the scope but it will be substantial elements of refurbishment.” I ask whether this is likely to include conference facilities, and
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