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Hancock Checks In

~ News and opinion from Peter Hancock, chief executive of Pride of Britain Hotels

Hancock Checks In

Monthly Archives: July 2017

I agree with Nick..sorry, Peter

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by Peter Hancock in News and opinion

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Eamonn Elliott, HMA, Martin Evans, National Hotel Marketing Conference

Do you recall the general election of 2010 in which Gordon Brown famously tried to spoil things for David Cameron by claiming to agree with Nick Clegg during the leaders’ debates?

I was reminded of this at the recent National Hotel Marketing Conference, organised by Martin Evans and the Hotel Marketing Association, where several speakers kindly said they agreed with comments I’d made in my own presentation near the start of the day. The gist of my piece was that although we are judged by the number and value of rooms we sell, what we’re actually selling is service. This is especially true at the top end of the market, given the many luxuries our customers already have access to at home, such as beautiful rooms and bathrooms and a good wine cellar.

Peter at NHMC 2017A high point of the day was an interview with Eamonn Elliott, chief executive at Pride of Britain’s current ‘Hotel of the Year’ Rockliffe Hall. He gave generous credit to members of his team for the hotel’s success, saying each of them drew upon their “inner demons” to work harder and achieve more.

The conference is always a pleasure to take part in and, as I have proved, you don’t need to know very much to make a useful contribution.

Voice of the balls?

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by Peter Hancock in News and opinion

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Cateys, kathryn ryan, voice of god, voice of the balls

Last Tuesday night I had the extraordinary privilege to be the “Voice of God” at the 2017 Catey Awards, presented by the publishers of The Caterer magazine at the Grosvenor House Hotel. There were 1,250 guests at the dinner and our sparkling host was Canadian stand-up comic Kathryn Ryan.

Cateys 2017(Picture shows the room while the technical team rehearsed behind the scenes before the event)

On arrival I was shown to a small table that had on it a small lamp, a pair of headphones plugged into a two way box, a script and a large microphone. To this I added a vital packet of lozenges and some lime cordial for the long task ahead.

Beside me was Julia our ‘Show Caller’ who made everything happen at precisely the right moment; 22 awards plus various speeches and bits of video. She must have the same kind of brain as an air traffic controller to be able to do that – amazing.

The best part of it for me was having such powerful amplification at my disposal, easily enabling my voice to be heard over all the talking and music. On nothing more than lime cordial I felt drunk with power!

Afterwards a leading hotelier commented that I reminded him of Alan Dedicoat (the BBC’s “Voice of the balls” for the Lotto draws). Quite handy if I should ever be offered bingo work, I suppose.

 

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