The saviour of St Andrews

07 February 2003 by
The saviour of St Andrews

Jonathan Stapleton was upfront with the owners of the 134-bedroom Old Course hotel at St Andrews in Fife. Approached by a headhunter to take on the general manager's role at the hotel, Stapleton went to visit and then wrote a three-page report detailing what he would change if they offered him the job.

Having been at Champneys for six years, during which time he made it arguably one of the top 10 spas in the world, Stapleton was not one to pull his punches. "There was great potential but the hotel had got into a status quo position," he says.

Stapleton's brief went to Jonathan Thornton, managing director of Kosaido Golf and Resort Management, the company that manages the hotel. He bought into Stapleton's ideas and offered him the job, which he started in December 2001. A year on, Stapleton is much happier with the business, which has a turnover of £9m a year. He believes that, given an upturn in the market, the hotel is now capable of achieving £10m a year. (During years when the British Open is played at St Andrews, the turnover rises to £11m.)

The strategy for change involved capital injection to the tune of £450,000. Part of this was a £150,000 investment in the staff through offering higher salaries, bringing in new leaders and providing financial incentives for staff based on productivity. Along with the extra money has come Stapleton's determination to shift the culture and thinking of the staff and ensure that they could see his vision for the future.

When he arrived, he started by restructuring the staff to get rid of hierarchy, but ensuring that a clear career path was available. Existing staff were given the opportunity to move with the times, but it had to happen rapidly. "Those who were here had to understand they had to move up a gear and there was not much time to do it," Stapleton says.

He believes in having more people on the front line, dealing with the customers and making decisions about how their departments are run. He also believes in problem solving. "No one raises problems with me," he says, "just solutions. I will spend all day with someone who has a solution, even if it's the wrong one."

He has now achieved his goal, and says: "I inherited a hierarchical structure and now it is a decision-making culture."

In human resources, Stapleton has altered the thinking to reflect the need to choose the right people, rather than hiring staff because the hotel needed people and anyone would do. In addition, he has had personnel evaluations and reviews implemented, and introduced incentive and recognition schemes for the staff.

With this new mindset to work from, Stapleton explained to staff his three-year plan for the hotel and invited their comments. Then he used the staff to help him tackle the next major issue, the hotel product itself.

The hotel's position overlooking St Andrews' Old Course, the home of golf, gives it a huge advantage, but Stapleton felt it had become complacent and was relying on its setting to sell rooms. "The product was flat and boring, with no distinctive features," says Stapleton. "I really believe that every area must be an experience for the guest. The whole place lacked attention to detail - no one had asked, ‘Why is this here?'."

Along with an interior designer, Stapleton and his heads of department spent four days walking through the hotel, trying to see it for the first time and imagining how the various items of furniture and plants would look elsewhere. Stapleton had submitted a budget for renovations, but he also believed that much could be achieved simply by repositioning existing furniture into more appropriate areas. In total, he spent about £100,000, including £30,000 on renovating the hotel's ballroom, which plays a big role in helping to attract conference business and incentive packages.

Pure business accounts for only 20% of the hotel's revenue, but many of the leisure clients are there nominally for business or work-related reasons. The hotel's total revenue is evenly split between domestic and overseas guests. The domestic clientele dominates the winter, when the yield is 50% of that of the summer months. This is partly because of lower rates offered during the low season, but also because international guests are more likely to book premium rooms with views and suites. On average, the hotel's achieved room rate is £90 from November through to April, and £200 in the summer months.

The USA, Japan, Germany, France and Italy are key international markets, and guests are predominantly male and over 45.

The hotel's spa, which also got a revamp (see panel below), gives a reason for female partners to come and for guests to stay longer.

The spa is where Stapleton believes he can make up for the loss of US clientele post-11 September. "I'd say 40% of the total business was American [before 11 September] and now it is 20%," he says. "We have made that up [in volume] from Europe, but we send a different message to that market. Rather than putting golf at the top, we sell the history of the destination, its proximity to Edinburgh, our facilities." This new message is going out to places such as Russia, Ireland, Switzerland and Germany, where Stapleton believes there is an audience that is willing to pay for the quality the Old Course hotel now offers.

That quality is reflected in the packages sold. When Stapleton arrived, there was only a B&B rate. "The café wasn't really somewhere guests would want to go eat," he observes. Now, every two-night package includes one dinner that can be taken either à la carte in seafood restaurant Sands, or from the table d'hôte (£39.50) in the fine-dining Road Hole Grill. In some cases, guests upgrade to the Road Hole Grill's à la carte at £45 per person.

This means that the contribution of food and beverage to the total revenue has grown considerably. "Rooms are down 15% this year, but food and beverage is down only 5%," Stapleton says. "So although we have fewer visitors, those using our restaurants have increased."

A year into the job, Stapleton is pleased that the numbers of guest complaints are minimal and compliments regular. His job is far from finished - bedrooms in the hotel's traditional wing need refurbishment in the next two years - but he believes that the hotel now offers the best it can with what is currently available.

"Financially," he says, "we haven't met targets, but we've stuck to the strategy and it's just frustrating that the market is weaker than anticipated. We have invested to improve, and if we hadn't arrested the decline in standards we would not be ready for the upturn."

Out with the old, in with the new

The Jigger Inn
Pub with wonderful view on one side of hotel

Was: tired, shabby, male-dominated
Now: redecorated, features home cooking, has Celtic beer on draft, is more female friendly

Road Hole Grill
Fine-dining restaurant with view of Old Course and beachfront

Was: old-fashioned, unchanging, traditional menu
Now: dedicated chef David Kinnes features Scottish produce on à la carte menu (£45) that changes every six weeks, and table d'hôte (£39.50) changing every two or three days; aiming for three AA rosettes
Average spend: £40

Sands
Hotel's second restaurant

Was: ubiquitous café-restaurant
Now: specialises in seafood and fusion-style cooking on quarterly changing menu, features Absinthe cocktails
Average spend: lunch, £23; dinner, £35

The Spa

Had: inappropriate flooring in the gym; too few treatment rooms that were too small; old-style weight equipment that was potentially dangerous to guests
Now: new flooring, resistance equipment and eight new and larger treatment rooms; three product houses, Thalgo, Clarins and Pevonia
Cost of revamp: £200,000

While the treatment rooms were created by sacrificing bedrooms above the spa on the hotel's first floor, general manager Jonathan Stapleton believes the loss of income from the rooms during the golfing months will be compensated by the spa use throughout the year. "Over the next three years," he says, "20% of the business coming to us will be as a result of our focus on the spa."

Fact file

Old Course hotel
St Andrews, Fife
Tel: 01334 474371www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk

Owner: Kosaido Sakurai, through Kosaido Golf and Resort Management
Bedrooms: 134
Turnover: £9m
Average achieved room rate: winter, £90; summer, £200
Investment in 2002: £550,000
Staff: 110 full-time; 200 with summer casuals

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