LONDON—The principal goal of Red Carnation Hotels is to provide exemplary guest experiences via an effusion of company DNA into each of its properties, according to the hotel company’s managing director Jonathan Raggett.
It is a plan that is apparently resonating with guests, as four of its six London properties—Hotel 41, The Montague on the Gardens, The Rubens at the Palace and The Milestone, respectively—sit in the top four spots in TripAdvisor’s rankings of the hotels in the United Kingdom capital.
Two other of its London hotels, The Chesterfield Mayfair and Egerton House Hotel also are in the top 10.
“I challenge the staff of those hotels (occupying the top spots) to swap their positions around by striving to be evermore consistent and providing even better service,” Raggett said, who spoke with Hotel News Now at Red Carnation’s The Chesterfield Mayfair, London.
Red Carnation has 11 hotels rated as 4- and 5-star properties in the U.K. and Ireland, as well as three in South Africa and one each in Geneva, Switzerland, and Palm Beach, Florida. The company started in 1984 when its South African founder and president Bea Tollman, who still runs the company, bought the 107-room Chesterfield Mayfair.
The Tollman family’s principal business venture is The Travel Corporation, an umbrella under which sits Trafalgar Tours, Uniworld, Contiki Holidays and Red Carnation, among others.
The family, via other business arrangements, also once co-owned the Days Inn chain in the 1980s.
Latest buy
The most recent hotel to have been added to the chain was Ashford Castle in Cong, Ireland, which covers 265 acres. For new hotels to be considered for the brand there must be opportunity to infuse the company’s DNA so as to add value, Raggett said.
That was true for Ashford Castle, which Red Carnation bought in 2013 from Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency, which has a state-mandated task of disposing of distressed assets sitting largely on bank balance sheets.
Despite the Irish hotel’s fame, Raggett said the Ashford “was tired.”
“The former general manager had to allocate rooms to guests depending on which way the wind and rain blew,” he added.
Ashford Castle, which Raggett refers to as being the “Gleneagles of the South,” reopens on 24 March following a top-to-bottom renovation that will see new plantings and windows, a spa, a billiards room and a 36-seat movie theater.
The £20-million ($30-million) RCH paid for the property is a significant drop from the £50 million ($75 million) it previously sold for in 2008. The difference, Raggett said, has been invested back into the property.
“Our task now is to increase business during its shoulder seasons and attract business from blue-chip companies,” Raggett said, who added Tollman family funds allow acquisitions to be concluded quickly and there are no loans on the books.
“We’re always on the lookout for new properties,” Raggett added, “but there is no strategy. Location remains the important criteria, and also that the owners are engaged.”
Excelling service
At the heart of the company is service, according to Raggett.
“Every hotel has its own GM. In London, I could save money by having cluster GMs, but I feel service would suffer. Again, I have a higher payroll than others but also the best staff,” he said.
Raggett knows what he is looking for when he hires for positions that include hotel-specific social media staff.
“We want to kill our guests with kindness and the right touches, and I learned from my friend (the New York City restaurateur) Danny Meyer whose hospitality quotient for hiring required staff to be kind, caring, empathetic and to have integrity and a high work ethic,” Raggett said.
Observation is also key to those gaining stellar TripAdvisor scores.
“If cleaning staff see a pair of running shoes in a room, the next time that guest checks in there will be a running magazine waiting,” Raggett said.