Last Tuesday, I attended a late-morning event in the Mayfair area of London organized by UKHospitality to talk about staffing problems in the hotel industry and efforts to have all the voices in the hotel and hospitality industry speak as one.
There is no doubt finding staff is the biggest challenge facing the industry, a hurdle even greater than rising inflation and energy costs, and it is not just the hotel industry that is suffering.
The challenge is being described as a “battle for bodies,” which sounds grim, but it is absolutely true — something that was further brought home by a trip I took last weekend to Wales, the first time I have been there for several years and a birthday present for Francesca, my wife.
It was a banner birthday, so something special was required, and the trip was memorable, including a walk around St. Davids, which everyone in the United Kingdom will tell you is our smallest city.
Its beautiful cathedral dwarfs the city named after Wales’ patron saint.
Everywhere we walked we saw hotels, pubs and restaurants with signs stating “Staff needed. Apply within,” which I soon saw should have actually read “Pulse needed. Start immediately.”
I wonder if anyone hiring is scrutinizing resumes?
Kate Nicholls, CEO at UKHospitality, said job vacancy levels are now double what they were pre-COVID-19, and currently one in 10 jobs in the industry is not being filled, although that is a figure that has not changed since August 2020.
Demand for the services and delights of hotels, pubs and restaurants certainly has increased.
I hear anecdotes of friends waiting 20 minutes to be served a pint of beer.
The weekend did fall into the school half-term holidays, and this past weekend was part of the four-day Platinum Jubilee celebrations for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, so things were exceptionally busy, expect, perhaps, in recruitment offices.
That special bit for Francesca's birthday?
We felt a little like royalty at the exquisite Roch Castle, which sits at the edge of the small village of Roch in the beautiful county of Pembrokeshire.
Built in the 12th Century by a Norman knight named Adam de Rupe, the castle was transformed in 2013 by Keith Griffiths, a Welsh architect.
It has six rooms, and we stayed in one called De Rupe, right at the top of the circular staircase.
On the second floor was a lounge and sunroom with a balcony. A tiny study and alcove provided sunny vantage points of green fields and the sea.
Its staff is wonderful, and most of the time it felt as though you were the only person at home, king and queen of the castle, so to speak.
Roch Castle is part of the three-hotel Retreats Group portfolio — the others being the 41-room Twr y Felin in St. Davids, a larger, more standardized hotel with an excellent restaurant; and the nine-room Penrhiw Priory. Staffing pressures are evident here, too, with Penrhiw currently operating on an exclusive basis due to the lack of staff.
This small group of hotels even has a shared motto, displayed in crests on entry gates, which reads in Welsh, “Bid ben, Bid Bont.” I was told this loosely translates as “Be a Bridge, Be a Leader,” which surely must be a statement all hoteliers should take to heart.
Roch Castle sits on the Landsker Line, which traditionally divides this mostly English-speaking part of Wales from Welsh-speaking areas; and the tiny stream close to the foot of the castle, the Brandy Brook, represents part of that divide.
I did hear Welsh being spoken.
Being a birdwatcher, I was also delighted at Roch Castle’s apparent obsession with corvids — members of the crow family — with murals dotted around in part showing carrion crows, rooks, ravens and that symbol of Wales, and Cornwall, the chough, which I searched for along the gorgeous Pembrokeshire Coastal Part but to no avail.
One tapestry raven is killing a snake, and the legend of the castle is that De Rupe was told a prophecy that he would perish from a snake bite in the space of a calendar year.
The tale goes that he locked himself in at the top of the castle, perhaps in the rooms we stayed in, but on the last day of the year he sent for some wood for the room’s fire and, of course, lurking in the sticks and branches was a venomous snake, presumably an adder, as it is the U.K.’s only poisonous serpent, although its bite is rarely deadly.
Other wonderful finds were Lobster & Môr in the idyllic coastal village of Little Haven — our first stop, for lobster rolls — and the quite exquisite Haven Brasserie in nearby Nolton Haven, which opened six months before the pandemic and thus is enjoying its first full year of operations.
May neither of them be hit by staffing woes.
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