The Editor's Hospitality Blog

I found a dusty old book at my parents' house this weekend, which set me thinking about the hospitality industry's continuing problem with public perceptions of its potential to offer a worthy career path.

Called Careers for Boys, the book was published in 1938 and features a range of insights into the various jobs and professions open to young men seven decades ago that are quaintly dated. "It is a mistake to assume that the coming of the motor age has done away with the necessity for veterinary surgeons", begins one chapter; while another states that "Today, as ever, the sea has an irressistible appeal for the manly, adventure-loving type of British youth".

I scanned the contents page for any mention of catering and hotelkeeping, and found none. Finally, under a concluding round-up at the back of the book entitled "Other careers", I found hotel and restaurant work listed among other such marginal pursuits as brewing, the Ministries and plantation work ("Life in distant parts of the Empire always has a strong appeal").

When I left University in the late Eighties, it never occured to me to enter the world of hospitality. Indeed, when a friend of mine accepted a full-time job managing a restaurant in Bristol after we graduated, I remember thinking her choice a very odd one. In the four years since I joined the Caterer, my views have altered hugely, to the extent that, if I had known 20 years ago what I do now I reckon I would have spurned journalism in favour of a career in hotels.

I can understand why hospitality held such low currency for careers officers seventy years ago. Hotels were far fewer in number than now; and the restaurant and contract catering booms were still decades away. But why does the image problem persist in 2007?

I think we need more role models the general public can relate to. When youngsters think about hospitality, Jamie, Gordon and Marco spring to mind, along with the poor, beleagured drones they bark at. But these public figures are atypical of the industry.

Instead, we need to ensure that the mention of hospitality conjures images of job satisfaction, international travel, creativity, even glamour - for these are all pleasures that a career in hospitality can offer. Do children appreciate that GMs can live in style in exotic locations around the globe? That sommeliers are courted by wine merchants and get to tour vineyards and champagne caves? That hotel reception staff get to speak to a huge range of people, anonymous, famous and infamous? And that all these job functions, carried out well, can create enormous personal fulfilment? Probably not.

How we alter misconceptions, I don't know. But I have a nagging doubt that hospitality is no better at shouting about itself now, than it was in 1938.

Yesterday I wrote a blog in which I bemoaned the lack of role models in the hospitality industry, other than the usual TV-chef suspects.

It subsequently occurred to me that Springboard's forthcoming Buddy Day offers you and everyone else working in hospitality to become role models for a day.

Each year, on Buddy Day, hospitality workers bring a companion in to work, to highlight to them what a great place the world's fastest-growing industry is to work in. For employers, the initiative also offers the chance to showcase jobs and careers in your business and to meet potential new recruits.

Springboard describes its 3663-sponsored Buddy Day as:

"a hands-on work experience day that involves the candidate (The Buddy) shadowing an employee for a day. Buddy Days provide candidates with a taste of what a particular job involves, the skills and attributes they would need and a chance to sample the atmosphere of a particular working environment. It could literally be anything from shadowing the MD to helping out in a kitchen or assisting in a leisure club. In fact, it could be just about anything involved in your business operation."

Buddies are typically either potential recruits (youngsters in school, college or university, the unemployed, career changers and returners) or influencers (parents, teachers, career advisors, Jobcentre Plus advisors, councilors - or anyone in a position to promote the sector positively).

Springboard's Buddy Day takes place on Thursday 1st November. To get involved, contact Springboard directly.

Check out this response to a previous posting, in which the writer complains about the practice of overbooking hotel rooms on the assumption that there will be cancellations.

It sounds from the tone of the posting that he or someone he knows has recently been turned away from a Travelodge, despite having booked and pre-paid for a room there:

Are we to conclude that Travelodge is in the business of entering into contracts with its clients, which it knows it cannot fulfill? I am awaiting a response to an emailed request and personal phone call to the manager of the offending Travelodge.

Has this person been unlucky or ill-treated? Or is this standard and fair practice? let us know what you think.

Bad news in Green Month: the supermarket chains are pressurising UK pumpkin growers to whack up the heating in their barns to make sure the two million pumpkins they expect to shift for Halloween turn orange by October 31st.

In other words, farmers are spending time, money and natural resources to grow huge crops of pumpkins, and then centrally heating them for three weeks, not so that chefs can make lovely dishes out of them, but so that kids across the country can cut scary faces into them and then leave them to rot.

What a mad, mad, wasteful world ...

Nick Hornby would have enjoyed last Friday's Hospitality Action Ball at London's Grosvenor House Hotel.

Novelist and Arsenal fanatic Hornby once described the perfect football match as having as many goals as possible, a noisy crowd and a punch-up.

The HA Ball managed to net three goals: awarding the companies and individuals that have done most to support it in the past year, giving guests a great night out and raising a magnificent £100.000. Certainly, the crowd was good-naturedly raucous. And yes, there was even a fight - two dinner-jacketed alpha males squared up to one another towards the end of the evening, giving a whole new meaning to Hospitality Action.

Well done to the GM of the Dorchester Hotel, Chris Cowdray, who managed to pull the men apart with the deft decisiveness of a Govan landlord at kicking-out time.

Well done, too, to Penny Moore and all at HA for a great evening.

Those clever people at Travelodge have struck upon an ingenious way of gathering intelligence on potential sites for new hotels: cash rewards.

The budget hotel chain has mustered a £25m bounty to encourge the public to help it in its quest to open 500 new UK hotels by 2020. If the company builds on the land or in the building you suggest, they'll pay you £500 for each bedroom, up to a ceiling of £150,000.

This is a typically clever piece of marketing from a company that's become expert at courting publicity. What's more, it allows consumers into the decision-making process and taps into local knowledge.

So, any ideas? let me know and I'll be sure to pass them on for you ...

Last Friday I witnessed the unlikely spectacle of Marco Pierre White and Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill comparing leg hair, and saw a member of the aristocracy dressed as a tramp - all courtesy of Hospitality Action.

White and Gill were joined by food columnist and son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Tom Parker Bowles at the shooting of the latest Hospitality Action awareness adverts. This ongoing series of adverts depicts top chefs suffering the sort of life-altering set-backs often experienced by beneficiaries of HA funding. Previous ads have portrayed Raymond Blanc being led by a guide dog, Heston Blumenthal living rough and Anton Edelmann languishing in a hospital bed.

Gill arrived on set first, sporting a stained and raggedy jacket and trouser combo that looked as if he had lost one of his review-lunches down the front of it. "I borrowed one of your suits, Marco", he claimed, when the Hell's Kitchen supremo appeared. Marco exemplified Oxford Street doorway-chic, his Robinson Crusoe-style trousers exposing his ankles and calves. After a few moments spent gauging who had the fuzziest legs, they slumped onto a park bench, vodka bottles in hand, singing "underneath the arches" and laughing like drains.

Only last week, Gill wrote in the Sunday Times: "I always book under a false name, but I never wear a disguise. Getting into a wig and a costume and talking in a funny voice to eat dinner is weird and way too self-obsessed – it’s the sort of thing they do in America." According to HA chief exec Penny Moore, he broke that rule last Friday, when he and Marco left the shoot to review a nearby restaurant in full down-and -out garb. Considering that he had sportingly given up a day of his life to support HA, I think we can forgive him ...

Tom Parker Bowles took longer to emerge from make-up than his fellow tramps. "It's hard to make an aristo look rough", quipped Marco.

Look out for the resulting adverts in future issues of Caterer and Hotelkeeper.

The deadline is looming for hospitality operators wishing to enter Best Places to Work in Hospitality 2008. Here are five good reasons why you should get working on your application NOW.

ONE We all know how hard it is to attract, recruit and retain great employees. Winning a Best Places award and displaying the Best Places kitemark on job adverts makes it clear to prospective candidates that you are an employer of choice and treat your staff well.

TWO All category winners receive extensive profiling in Caterer and Hotelkeeper and here on Caterersearch, meaning that your company could become an exemplar of employment best practice around the industry.

THREE Competitive advantage: wouldn't it be great to be able to boast that you offer a more attractive place of work than the other players in your sector?

FOUR What better morale-booster for your team could there be than winning one of our Best Places awards?

FIVE Your success will be celebrated at a blue riband event taking place at the Honourable Artillerary Company in the City of London, during the week of Hotelympia 2008.

Can you afford not to fill in an application form and shout about your employment successes?