Luxury Travel Advisor - January 2008 - (Page 54) COVER STORY says Cowdray. “You don’t want a lobby that’s so quiet that people think that there’s nothing going on in the hotel.” Case in point: The lobby at The Dorchester, which is actually a wide promenade, was at one point typically rather empty. Cowdray installed a trendy bar at the far end and arranged for music to be played in the evenings, creating an ambiance that now lasts until 2 a.m. These two factors alone are magnets for those who want to socialize. “We wanted to make this the most sought-after hotel to be seen in, to stay in and to work at. Those are the three parameters we set,” says Cowdray. “By making this a hotel to be seen in you are drawing the local community into it and that’s why our food-and-beverage offerings are so broad, which is very unusual for a hotel today. We have China Tang, a very prominent Chinese restaurant. I invited [famed HOTEL PLAZA ATHÉNÉE’S EIFFEL TERRACE SUITE has stunning views of its eponymous Paris icon. chef ] David Tang in to open the restaurant here, and it’s been phenomenally successful. It’s created a tremendous excitement. Then we’ve got The Grille with Michelinstar chef, Aiden Byrne.” There’s more: On the morning Luxury Travel Advisor visited with Cowdray he was preparing for the opening that evening of “Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester,” a con- temporary French restaurant with a unique contemporary design. Strategizing to deliver high-end and high-profile restaurants is a practice Cowdray enjoys. While serving as managing director at Claridge’s, he introduced Gordon Ramsay’s now-famous dining establishment, a formula that helped turn around Claridge’s fortunes and set the three-Michelin-star chef on his FRANÇOIS DELAHAYE COO, THE DORCHESTER COLLECTION Plaza Athénée as general manager in 1999, knowing that he would have to turn the hotel around. “The Hotel Plaza Athénée had a very strong name, but the sleeping beauty was just asleep, you know?” he tells Luxury Travel Advisor. Part of Delahaye’s stunning success with the five-star hotel included establishing the Alain Ducasse Restaurant as well as the trendy Le Bar du Plaza Athénée. Delahaye, who still retains his leadership of the Hotel Plaza Athénée, says the Dorchester Collection overall is keen on implementing attractive bars in all of its properties. “We need to seduce the sons and daughters of our clientele. If we don’t, we will fail. We need them to be going to the bar and saying, ‘Wow, if the bedrooms are like the bar, they must be trendy.’ If they see many famous people in the bar and in the lobby, they’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s the place I want to be, and that’s the place to be seen.’” Within the organization, Delahaye believes in treating his staff with respect, so that that respect will in turn be passed along to the guest. “A company is a tripod, comprised of the owner, the staff and the customer, who must François Delahaye, chief operating officer of the Dorchester Collection, joined the Hotel all be equally receiving and giving benefits. The clients need to pay the right price but they need to receive the right service. The employee needs to give the right service and he needs to be rewarded by fair employment, and also the kind of people who motivate him. The owner needs to invest, but he needs to get a return on investment, either on ego, on finance, on recognition on the value of his property and the growth of the value of the property. If you don’t have those three legs as equals it doesn’t work in the long term. The role of somebody like me is to make sure that the tripod is standing correctly all the time,” says the COO. Delahaye also believes that staff should be empowered to intuitively service the guest. “This is so important. We need to enable the ground staff to make small decisions, not major strategy decisions, of course, but they need to be empowered. Take the example of a guest that’s checked in but the room is not ready because it’s too early in the morning. The staff at the desk is empowered to take that guest immediately to the breakfast room and to treat them immediately. They don’t need to go through management, because it needs to be taken care of right away.” 54 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | January 2008
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