David Pantin, former MD of Rocco Forte Hotels and a vice president of Trusthouse Forte and Hilton will launch the first of 10 hotels in Leeds in late August, collaborating with Albert Roux, for Pantin Hotels' first luxury boutique hotel, The Ellington
ABTN: Is the hotel going to open on time?
David Pantin: ”It is. We said we would open in the last week of August, and we should take back the building from the contractors around that time, then have a soft opening of about a week and so we are taking reservations from 8 September. We decided we would open it with a thorough testing and with everything fully snagged, and though it”s not a large hotel ” only 35 keys, we want it to be an integrated experience for the consumer and we all know how irritating it is if everything isn”t open immediately.”
Why did you choose Leeds for the hotel, and also for your head office?
”It was simply because the first site we found was in Leeds, and because of the focus I wanted to put on the early work I felt it would be a good location for the head office. From a commuting perspective the arterial routes are very good, there is a burgeoning airport nearby and its pretty easy travel from throughout Europe. Obviously we have put in significant systems both in terms of IT systems, and corporately in terms of marketing and distribution.
Also, Leeds doesn”t have a five star hotel. It has a couple of boutique hotels with no dedicated in-house catering in my understanding, and I felt the market was appropriate for a small, good high quality hotel. We can”t call ourselves five-star without some of the facilities, such as a spa. But in these days the star grading isn”t necessarily the focus. Highly personalised service and giving the business traveller the technological service they need with a high calibre food and beverage is more important.
Crucially, I do think there”s a gap in the market, and with only 35 keys it is relatively easily absorbed into the inventory of the city. The plan is for the second property to be here as well, about a mile away. That will be around 90 keys.”
The Ellington is a member of Small Leading Hotels of the World. How important is that?
It”s very important. The distribution channels are wonderfully enhanced for small companies these days, but we are very small, and so working with a company like The Leading Hotels of the World is a great boost for us. I”ve worked with them for over 20 years and I know how important they can be to the success of a property.”
You aren”t branding the hotels as Pantin Hotels. Why not?
”I believe we are better off giving each hotel a strong sense of its own identity in the market where it is based. We are too small to be focussing on a brand globally, and keeping it this way we have the ability to work with selected partners internationally. What we have to do is make sure that the consumer knows about the other properties in the group and so the communication of that is very important. The ability for us to be able to lock into alliances such as Leading Hotels of the World or on the culinary side with Albert Roux helps gives us extra clout in the marketplace and establish a strong brand name which delivers.”
Who will stay ?
”I think a mixture of the corporate market which will obviously be strong from Monday to Thursday along with a very small high end conference: predominantly a business meeting environment. The leisure market is the tougher part, but there is a strong weekend shopping environment, it”s in the biggest county in the country, it is anchored by the tremendous shopping experience with Harvey Nichols and other shops, and it has a rich sporting heritage, up and down, perhaps, with the football team and cricket teams. It”s also a great place to stop off for exploring the Dales, York and Bronte country.”
How hotels are you planning for the Pantin Hotels group?
”I hope we can be at 10 hotels in the next five years. They will predominantly be new builds or conversions. We are looking internationally because we want to focus on good opportunities that represent how we believe hotels should be operated in markets we think we can add value to both in terms of our operating skills and in terms of potential alliances we can bring. In establishing the business needed to get three things sorted out: first class people, first class systems, and a very good deal pipeline, which grows by the day. We have some very good projects that I hope we can close on in the next two or three months.”
How has the current situation affected the deal pipeline?
”Certainly debt funding is in a very different situation to a year ago, so in that respect it can be more of a challenge to put deals together, but on the other hand it also becomes a more sensible and structured proposition without huge elements of gearing on a property. For the construction sector, it is much tougher, and clearly finding funding for new build projects is tougher, but there”s a great deal of interest in the asset class internationally, there”s a great deal of equity focussing on good projects, and I haven”t seen a turn down in the deal flow. The Ellington cost seven and a half million, and going forward we are looking for individual partners and investors for each particular project.”
Do you think the downturn will affect hotel occupancy?
”The luxury sector seems by and large to be unaffected, and there is a strong demand for the luxury sector internationally. I would hope the ability to deliver service of a very high quality effectively is the issue. And again, we are not building a large hotel, it is a 35-key property. Many of us have been through recessions before, so we are not daunted by what is coming. We have Gerhard Schaller running The Ellington, who is a former GM of the Balmoral Hotel, we have Sally Rouse who was at Rocco Forte in Sales & Marketing and also Preferred Hotels, and Mark Lightbound as Director of Finance. There are 15 of us at the head office, and the hotel team is about 60 people, so it is a pretty high labour to guest ratio.”
http://www.pantinhotels.com/theellington
Note: March 20, 2009: The Ellington Hotel has since closed. We shall update our readers as soon as we have further information.