Last week the great, the mighty and me attended the UKHospitality Summer Conference, which was very enjoyable and lasted five hours over one day at the Hilton London Bankside, right opposite the London STR/Hotel News Now office.
There were two keynote speakers — the mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, who pretty much told us what a good job he’d done; and Mandy Hickson, who flies Tornado GR4 fighter jets for a living.
Hickson is impressive. She compared what she learned during her career to management techniques, teamwork and the like, which of course she would do so as a keynote speaker at a hotel industry gathering.
What was impressive was the absolute dedication she needed to show in her career.
She failed her flight exams twice, was told she stood a 1-in-3,000 chance of success, operated in an almost totally male world, dreamed of and planned her future when that future was not yet open to women, and became only one of five women ever to have flown her particular airplane. According to the website Global Security, the Tornado GR4 is a “variable geometry, two-seat, day or night, all-weather attack aircraft capable of delivering a wide variety of weapons … powered by two Rolls-Royce RB 199 Mk 103 turbofan engines.”
Almost 3 million pounds sterling ($3.76 million) was spent on Hickson's training up to the day she took and passed her final-chance examination, but it was money well spent, and she flew these supersonic jets for 17 years, including a stint in Iraq.
One thing Hickson mentioned was that when you fly a GR4 jet, the G-force of nine makes the human body weigh as much as a Formula1 racing car.
She had a pithy acronym to share, too, which I believe derives from the Royal Air Force training manual: NUTA — Notice, Understand, Think Ahead.
It was a good talk, and if you would like to read more, then there is her book “An officer, not a gentleman: The inspirational journey of a pioneering female fighter pilot.”
An Iron in an Inn
Last Wednesday, I traveled to see Starwood Capital Group affiliate SH Hotels & Resorts’ Treehouse Hotel London and to hear updates on its second property, Treehouse Hotel Manchester, which will open in the first quarter of 2023.
The London hotel sits opposite the famed hotel Langham, London, just off Oxford Street.
My visit to the Treehouse was most invigorating, and it incorporated two of my minor obsessions.
Firstly, Luke Cowdrey was there, one of a large crowd having come down from Manchester. He is a restaurateur, promoter, nightclub and bar manager and DJ, and this led to a wealth of conversation on Manchester bands, which collectively sit high above just about anywhere else musically in my opinion.
One of his food and beverage creations will grace the Manchester hotel.
Cowdrey had stories on pop bands The Smiths, A Certain Ratio and Cabaret Voltaire — the latter from Sheffield, which is also where he hails — and others, but mostly stories about The Fall, whose records make up a sizable percentage of my collection and who I have seen far more than I have seen any other band.
Hickson mostly definitely would inspire hoteliers; The Fall, I very much believe, far, far less so.
Anecdotes of its chaotic existence are the stuff of music-industry legend.
Also in attendance was the London hotel’s managing director, Ayo Akinsete, who will also take on the responsibility of the Manchester property. Before his hotel career, Akinsete was a professional soccer player for West Ham United, the team I support.
He made it all the way through the famed Academy training program at the club but never made it to the first team, where the chances of success for any young player are about the same as in Hickson’s line of work.
But Akinsete is undoubtedly a Hammer and an Iron, which are two nicknames for West Ham players.
After his time at “The Pride of East London,” he played minor-league soccer in the U.S. and, via a few chance meetings and helpful advice, attended university in Las Vegas to study hospitality, where, voilà, his present chapter started to be written.
He was hobbling around on crutches having recently broken his patella. I asked how it happened.
“Turning the clocks back,” he said, referring to how he thought he might still be — and probably is — the soccer player he once was.
The hotel industry is so full of these wonderful characters.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.