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An artist’s conception of The Langham lobby, as it will appear in 2009


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Duncan R. Palmer

Repositioning The
Langham, London

Editors’ Note

A graduate of England’s Westminster Hotel and Catering College, Duncan Palmer was General Manager of The Savoy and The Connaught in London, as well as The Sukhothai Bangkok, before assuming his present post in February 2004. Earlier in his career, he held management positions for 12 years with the Asian luxury hotel group, Mandarin Oriental.

Property Brief

Located in the heart of London’s West End, The Langham, London, is situated near Regent’s Park and is within walking distance of the shops on Regent Street, Bond Street, and Oxford Street. With 427 spacious rooms and suites, the hotel is a member of the Langham Hotels International (www.langhamhotels.com) family.

Has the high end of the hotel sector in London shown strong growth over the past year? Looking ahead to 2008, do you feel the signs are there for continued growth?

Yes, 2007 was yet another strong year for London. However, there is a degree of sensitivity with regard to pricing at the moment, because of the current strength of the pound. That will probably have an effect on our growth. We’re expecting another 3 to 5 percent rise in 2008, but obviously costs are going up as well. As a result, the opportunity to go much higher in pricing is limited for 2008. Despite the abundance of cash that’s floating around, there is a little bit of resistance from some of the luxury market coming out of America.

Your property has always been kept up to date and looking its best. Are you planning any major improvements over the next few years?

We’ve just opened a new David Collins restaurant, The Landau, which is a place to see and be seen in. We’re running it ourselves. I’ve employed an excellent English chef, who specializes in European food, and a wonderful Italian maitre d’.

In addition, we’re looking to redo all the public areas of The Langham, London, during 2008. We’re remodeling 250 bedrooms, so that they all meet the highest standards. Our goal is to reposition The Langham to be one of the top five hotels in London by the beginning of 2009. That will require an investment in excess of £50 million in the public areas and accommodations of the hotel. So this is a very exciting time for The Langham, London, and The Langham brand in general.

You mentioned your new restaurant, The Landau. London is known for its impressive array of top-quality restaurants. How challenging is it for a hotel restaurant to compete with stand-alone restaurants in London? Are you able to attract the local community?

The local community helps highlight the image of the hotel. Local people tend to book their colleagues and friends into the hotels that have high-profile bars and restaurants, and there’s no question that this continues to drive our rooms business at the top end. The challenge for hotels is to make their bars and restaurants destinations in and of themselves. We’re doing that at The Langham with a separate entrance on Regent Street, and we’ve wonderfully landscaped both the bar and the restaurant. So there is a strong affinity from the local market but, at the same time, great facilities within the hotel for resident guests.

In my view, creating a great destination restaurant is not rocket science. You need to employ a good designer, an excellent chef with a good background and good credentials, as indeed we have done, and a maitre d’ and wine sommelier who have tremendous track records. It’s also important to pay great attention to detail. That’s the challenge in running a hotel restaurant: making sure that you have that attention to detail. I think that you can get that by appointing the right designer with an experienced chef and service staff. That’s why we’ve gone with David Collins.

What does The Langham offer in the way of executive meeting space? Is that a key part of the business for you?

It is indeed. We’re actually looking to expand our medium-sized meeting rooms and boardrooms at The Langham, by utilizing 600 square meters of meeting space adjacent to the hotel. We can see that there is strong demand for good medium-sized meeting and boardroom facilities, so we are honing in on that market.

Many hotels suffer from high turnover of staff. Have you been able to find and retain the talent you need in order to provide the high quality of service for which you are known?

It is challenging in London. The city is doing well, and the hospitality sector is growing, so it’s not easy to retain your people. At The Langham, we do a lot of employee surveys to make sure that we are focusing our time and resources in the right way and creating the right environment for our staff. Despite being a small company, we continue to cross train our staff, and post people to our other properties when possible. In London, there’s a need to bring hospitality into the education system a little bit earlier. I think things are afoot within the industry to work with the government to make hospitality programs available for teenagers so that, by the time the Olympics come to London in 2012, there will be more English people in the hospitality industry. Many of our current employees come from Eastern European countries. They offer strong support, but it can be challenging.

We have a human resources program called 5Ms, and the five Ms are: Myself, My Colleagues, My Guests, My Langham, and My Brand. The program goes a long way toward encouraging retention among our employees and creating a very professional and enjoyable culture to work in.

How has your role changed over the years? Is it still important for you to be out in the lobby, meeting and greeting guests?

It is important. Many challenges have been put on the table for managers in the last five or 10 years. In short, everyone needs to be more disciplined in managing their time, across the board. You have to coach and direct your management and your employees accordingly. We have systems here at The Langham that allow us to get the management out of their seats and into the operation regularly throughout the day, and to meet our top guests.

I would like to think that, while there have been challenging times in recent years, we’re very much on top again, and focusing on the personal touch. Ultimately, that’s what people are looking for. We aim to create a high degree of enchantment and rapport with our guests. We’ve been working as a group to create that difference. We hope that, in the coming few years, we can create a niche for ourselves in the international luxury area. But certainly, it is challenging for managers to manage all the different facets of the business, as well as being out with the customers. It’s a question of managing your team around you and your own time well.