The Editor's Hospitality Blog

I was interested to read about People 1st's launch, earlier this week, of a Gold standard customer service campaign aimed at ensuring the customer experience for visitors to London before, during and after the 2012 Olympic Games is as positive as possible.

Their release quotes from a recent Square Meal Restaurant Guide survey, which revealed that 50% of UK diners find fault with the restaurant service they receive.

The campaign is backed by London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, who said:

"For the next few years leading up to the 2012 Games and beyond London will be the focus of the world. We are expecting a huge increase in the many millions of tourists who currently visit our capital from abroad and from around the UK and we must grasp the opportunity to ensure we offer a first class welcome to everyone – a welcome they will never forget."

What do you think of service standards across the country? I think they can be patchy. recently I went to a pub behind Piccadilly Circus and received such an astonishingly frosty 'welcome' at the bar that I immediately turned around and walked out again. And a few months ago, as I approached reception at a hotel in Scotland to check in, I was greeted with absolute silence from the person behind the desk. It was a bizarre and uncomfortable few seconds - I waited for her to acknowledge me, she waited for me to introduce myself - that would sit well as a case study on how not to greet customers in a management training video.

What and where was the best customer service you have received recently? And the worst?

The AA's chief hotel and restaurant inspector, Peter Birnie, joined us at the first judging sessions of the Hotel Cateys at the Dorchester Hotel this week. I took the chance to pop out for a bite with him afterwards, to witness an inspection first hand.

We went to Rhodes W1, Gary Rhodes' new fine dining venture at the Cumberland Hotel. I loved
the restaurant's Kelly Hoppen-designed interiors - the crystal chandeliers that dominate reminded me a bit of Superman's ice palace in the Christopher Reeve movies. Our initial concerns that we had hit the restaurant on a quiet night were soon dispelled, as the place filled up steadily.

So, how does an AA inspector inspect? In short, with huge care and a huge attention to detail.

I got my first taste of the new Wembley Stadium on Sunday, when I attended the Community Shield match between Man Utd and Chelsea. The place looked beautiful: blue sky, red seating and green grass combined to magnificent effect.

However, the People 1st representative who kindly hosted me for the day cannot have been too impressed by the bar staff that served us our pre-match pint of lager. Clearly, here was someone in dire need of a bit of skills investment ...

You might think that paying £3.50 for a plastic mug of lager would entitle you to a civil response to your order, perhaps even a smile. You'd be wrong.

The punter in front of us asked to have his pint replaced with one with a head of froth. The attendant instead sploshed the dregs from one of an array of half-empty beakers beside her into his pint, like a broke student minesweeping in the Nelson Mandela bar, creating all the fizz of an Anadin past its sell-by date.

As we stepped up to the counter, she scrutinised us wordlessly. Were we another couple of trouble makers about to make her life difficult by demanding lager with a suggestion of carbonation? the truth was even worse than that: I was about to attempt to settle a £7 bill with a £20 note. This flaming liberty drew a withering look and a silence that was broken only by an expansive sigh.

Now, I know that serving lager to 80,000 baying football fans must bring its own challenges. Still, I reckon visitors to our national stadium deserve a modicum of respect and civility. Having enjoyed the hospitality of the staff at the O2 Dome recently, I know it's not an imposssible ask.

The Coolbrands Council published its annual list of the UK’s coolest brands last week. Hospitality was well represented, with the likes of Malmaison, the Lowry Hotel, 42 The Calls, Smiths of Smithfield and Le Manoir aux Quatr’Saisons all earning a ranking.

Also listed were cool global brand destinations such as Cambodia, Croatia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

With the launch of Winning: A tourism strategy for 2012 and beyond, this week, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport hopes to ensure that Brand UK rates highly on similar lists across the world in the coming decade.

The DCMS forecasts that, by capitalising upon the opportunity the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games provide to showcase all we have to offer as a nation, we could generate £2.1bn from additional tourism between now and 2017.

The strategy provides a blueprint for improving international perceptions of Britain, delivering a first-class welcome to all visitors, improving tourist infrastructure and facilities, boosting the skills of the workforce and driving up accommodation quality by increasing the number of places that are accredited under the national star-grading scheme.

But the document fails to detail exactly how all these improvements will be paid for. Substantial investment will be required to realise an extra £2.1bn increase in tourism revenue; you have to speculate to accumulate.

We will have to wait until the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review in October to see if the government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is, by committing an adequate funding strategy to capitalising on the Olympics. Fair words alone will not spark significant growth in in-bound and domestic tourism off the back of the Games.

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.