The Caterer Blog

Well done to Toby Hartley, who was named winner of Springboard's 2007 Olive Barnett Awards at London's Langham Hotel on Monday night. The awards reward excellence in customer facing roles across hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism, and Toby and his seven fellow finalists are clearly destined for great things in the hospitality industry.

Well done, also, to Duncan Palmer, Managing Director of the Langham, for delivering a speech that had guests laughing out loud - despite his early assertion that his slot would be "quick and painful".

To illustrate the Langham's venerable past, Duncan introduced a 90-second video featuring dramatisations of formative events from the hotel's history. When the video began without any sound, he ad-libbed expertly, providing a running commentary that any Grand national commentator would be proud of.

With money tight hotel marketing consortium the Leading Hotels of the World has come up with a timely way to mark its 80th birthday.

Today at 1pm UK time it will be offering hotel rooms at a credit crunch friendly $19.28 (£10.39 in real money) to mark its foundation as a business, you've guessed it, in 1928.

The offer, subject to availability and open for 80 minutes only, means 61 European hotels are on offer including the Baglioni and Langham in London as well as Gleaneagles. So as they say, don't delay.

Visit www.lhw.com/1928 for more.

Langham sets sights on rapid international expansion>>