With the one-year countdown to the Olympics underway, ABTN speaks to Alvaro Rey, general manager of the Intercontinental London Park Lane, about preparations for the games...
It’s now just under a year until the start of the Olympics. What role is the Intercontinental London Park Lane going to play?
This hotel is going to play an extremely important role, as the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games have booked all our rooms. But, I think every single hotel in the city will see the Olympics as a great opportunity not only during the games, but pre and post. I think it’s up to us hoteliers to make it important for the city and the country.
Here at the Intercontinental London Park Lane, we have been preparing ourselves for a couple of years now. We have hired an Olympic manager, which is the person who is exclusively dedicated to the Olympics, who is working already at the hotel. Everything related to the Olympics goes through her. It makes life much easier both for the organisers and the hotel. It means we can channel everything through one person. I learnt this when I went to the Olympics in Vancouver. One of the hotels was doing this, and it worked very well. So we decided to do the same.
We are also training our people already, on different aspects of the hotel and how the Olympics work. People are very excited about it. Actually, we were the first hotel to send a person from our banqueting department to the Olympics village, on secondment. What we are doing is giving people to them for a year or 18 months, then they will come back. They will go and help with the Olympics, then come back.
Like a consultancy service?
Yes. People who specialise in the front office, or the check-ins and logistics, or food and beverage.
Managing the games must have some similarities with managing a hotel?
It does. We will be managing the Olympic village, where all the players will be. It’s a fantastic opportunity for every single employee – we are bringing people from all over the world to manage or be with the different delegations, according to their languages and expertise.
For us in Park Lane, it’s a great advantage. Here in this hotel we can provide a lot of people, because we have 62 nationalities working here.
What are you training your staff about now?
They are already very well trained to serve, we are just getting them excited about the whole event. We have a meeting every month where we focus on the Olympics. We have been doing a lot of sports, and a lot of gastronomic events with food from different countries. The idea is to get everybody excited throughout all this period until the Olympics arrives.
During the Olympics, will this hotel be doing anything extra or out of the ordinary?
We will be one of the Olympic family hotels, so we will have some of the big delegations here. Prior to the Olympics we will be doing food and beverage events – in the Cookbook Cafe, for example. There will be a lot of events for the guests and for the staff. It is very important to do events for the staff, so that they get motivated and engaged. I think it’s the responsibility of the hotel. For me the Olympics is about what we show to the rest of the world. It’s a great opportunity to see how many great things we have here in London. If staff are excited, they can pass that onto the guests.
And in terms of operations, what are some of the challenge that the Olympics will present?
There won’t be many challenges, as we are used to having the hotel at 100% occupancy. Any that there are will mainlybe on the logistics side. For example, there will be a lot of road closures so we will need to coordinate how all the food is going to get to the hotel, and the transportation of employees. All our timings will change a little bit, so you we will have to allow more time for these things. That will be the main concern.
As for the guests, most people will come from the duration of the games, so the movement of guests in and out will be very little. What we will have to work more on is the food and beverage, the bars, and the different activities that we create during that time to attract people to the hotel.
You mentioned security – will you be adding anything extra?
No, just the usual. We all hope to have a very peaceful Olympics.
And you are fully booked...
Yes, but we don’t know yet who will be staying at the hotel. LOCOG has booked all of our rooms. They have taken 100% of a few hotels on Park Lane, so they will decide who will go where. That is the way it works.
The Park Lane address must have helped in winning that business?
Well, yes. It’s an address that is known worldwide. Everybody wants to come to Park Lane.
We are on the corner of Park Lane and Piccadilly, so we are very privileged. For me, we have the top address on Park Lane.