Hotels, Venues & Event news
After six years of business in the heart of the capital, the W London – Leicester Square has announced a complete redesign of its public area bar and lounge spaces. Designed to reflect the 24/7 energy of both the W brand and the British capital, the new bar will feature subtle, abstract references to London’s fashion, music and design influences. The areas will feature a large gold veil, which will have an in-built illumination to pulse to the beat of music.
For the fourth year Trinity is raising money for local charities through an online auction, with a target to raise over £20,000 for four charities. The site can be found at: www.trinityauctions.co.uk
The Trinity Triple Challenge is an annual event for each member of staff to visit 20 venues in a weekend either in the UK or overseas. Each venue is asked to donate a prize and those prizes are now being auctioned off for charity.
Over 300 ‘lots’ are up for auction and include: dinners, afternoon teas, weekend breaks, theatre and theme park tickets and much more.
Jacqui Kavanagh, CEO, Trinity Event Solutions said: “The Trinity Triple Challenge offers us a great way to raise money for charity whist the team enhances their venue and destination knowledge. The Challenge ties in to our ‘Destination Champion’ programme, where members of staff become a specialist in a city or region, carry out site visits and work with the hotels and venues to give first-hand advice to clients, as well as providing advice about the logistics and suitability for events.
“The Triple Challenge is now an integral part of our CSR values called ‘It’s not what you give it’s how you live’. We have a strong CSR programme and it is at the core of what we do. I’m proud that the challenge is now in its fifth year; I urge the industry to dig deep and help us to beat our £20,000 target.”
The site went live on Sunday 1st October and will be live for a month. The site launches with 100 lots and more will be added each week throughout October.
The four charities being supported were chosen by the Trinity team, they are:
East Anglia Children’s Hospices
Bliss (for babies born premature or sick)
Planning permission has been given for a 150 bedroom Hilton Garden Inn hotel at Royal Windsor Racecourse. The four-storey hotel will have a bar and restaurant open for breakfast and dinner, and a fitness suite, all open to non-residents.
According to a recent report by the Food Standards Agency, more adults are having allergic reactions to food because of the peer pressure to try different cuisine, take risks with foods they are unsure about, and not admit to known allergies due to embarrassment.
Unfortunately, the NHS does not hold data on specific food allergies but figures for overall allergies, which include food-related cases, are rising sharply. According to NHS Digital data, there were 25,093 hospital admissions for allergies in England in 2016, up by 36% from 2012.
For meetings and event planners, this presents significant challenges when menu planning.
Therefore, here’s our checklist of four things to consider when discussing food choices with hotels and venues.
Don’t be the cause of kitchen chaos
You may think that a choice menu for 600 guests will circumnavigate some of today’s potential dietary issues, but have you considered what impact that could have on the kitchen? If guests see a dish being carried to a nearby table of something they’d prefer, it’s amazing how quickly they remember a forgotten chicken allergy, just so they can switch to their favourite sea bass. At a hotel or venue, the catering staff have to treat everyone the same so if somebody says they’ll be ill if they eat a certain dish, that has to be believed and dealt with accordingly.
Leave individuals in expert hands
The advice from Executive Chefs is to select the best possible menu for the majority of your guests and don’t worry about the CEO who doesn’t like mushrooms or is gluten free. An experienced catering team will handle individual exceptions professionally, leaving you to focus on creating the right impression with exciting food for the majority of guests.
Put the onus back onto guests
As an organiser, ensure that you’ve done everything within your power to communicate to guests that, should they have an undeclared food allergy, they can discuss it in private with a senior member of the catering team or make staff aware with the use of a table card. Ideally, you want to focus on medical requirements rather than food preferences and be aware of the sensitivities of early-stage pregnancies. If you’re planning a buffet, all foods will need to be labelled with the correct dietary information.
A secret of the trade
The majority of hotels prepare for the unknown by catering for an additional 10% of guests who change their mind or reveal food allergies. This trade secret should be confirmed with your hotel catering team and increased if thought necessary. If someone has a serious allergy to an ingredient such as nuts, their dessert will need to be prepared in a completely separate area of the hotel or bought in from the outside. It is safer to assume that most hotel pastry kitchen are already contaminated by nuts (and that’s not just the pastry chefs!).
These four considerations were discussed in-depth at our most recent Meetings Voice forum, held at the Royal Lancaster London. Should you wish to join our next event or would like to discuss menu planning for events, please contact Trinity Event Solutions or email paula@trinityeventsolutions.co.uk
We recently held a Meetings Voice Forum for our clients and one of the items for discussion was pairing wine with the appropriate food. The team at the Royal Lancaster suggested following this great advice when discussing the wine choice at your next banqueting event to guarantee that perfect match between food and grape.
If you’d like to join us at a future Meetings Voice forum, please contact paula@trinityeventsolutions.co.uk or call Paula Calton on 01780 484050.
The Royal Lancaster London relaunched in September, following an £83 million renovation. The extensive refurbishment has resulted in a new entrance facade and reception lobby, and the re-design of all 411 guest rooms and suites in the 18-storey tower, which overlooks Hyde Park. The hotel has also reinstated its original name of ‘Royal Lancaster London’ in time for the property’s 50th anniversary. Sally Beck, General Manager of Lancaster London, explains.
When did the renovation begin?
The renovations started in 2013 as a planned £40 million project. Most of our guests didn’t know anything about it as it was all back-of-house. It has since grown into an £83 million refurbishment. The hotel deserves the investment and our owner has done it properly. We’ve stayed open through-out and I believe that was the best decision as we’ve kept all our amazing staff. It was logistically challenging and it has taken us longer because we didn’t close. But I believe, it was better for the long-term future of our business.
Is there anything still left to do?
The public areas and the lobby, along with the completion of all meetings areas and all 411 rooms will be finished by the end of this year. We then start renovating the Lounge and our Park restau-rant in January. Once that is finished, we will be a completely new hotel from the inside out, which will be fit for purpose for the next 50 years.
What can business and event guests now expect from the Royal Lancaster London?
I want our guests to feel special and receive an emotionally intelligent service from the whole of our team. That means using a customer’s name when appropriate, instead of three times in one sentence for example. I want us to genuinely make our visitors happy and to deliver beyond expectations.
What’s the staff culture like?
We’ve just taken on 100 new members of staff and they have to feel part of our family quickly so that they can deliver the type of emotionally intelligent service that we’re looking for. I want to run the happiest hotel in London. We’re currently 72nd in The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Places to Work. We managed that during our renovation period, which is a great achievement. I want to be top 20. There’s 172 questions and the newspaper surveys all of our staff. The bit we can control is making sure that they fill it in but I can’t control what they say. When we get back the results, you get a genuine feel to the organisation and the happiness and engagement of our staff.
What’s your message to those event planners who have stuck with the hotel during the past few years?
Our message to our loyal customer base is thank-you for staying with us. Our future is very bright and we care deeply about loyalty. I believe our long-term pricing is fair and we are focused on developing long-term relationships.
I understand planners no longer need to book bedrooms as part of their event?
That’s right. We’ve changed our strategy from asking for a fixed number of room bookings from event organisers. I don’t think we need it anymore. The bedrooms now stand on their own two feet and the events space creates a separate demand that we can now cater for. Organisers book further in advance than transient business so if event planners need bedrooms, I believe we’ll be able to supply what’s required.
Finally, tell us why the Royal has returned to the hotel’s name?
The hotel opened as the Royal Lancaster in 1967. We have royal heritage and we’re located next to a royal park. There was a time in our history when it was felt that the word ‘Royal’ was dated and that we needed ‘London’ in our name. In 2009 therefore, we dropped the ‘Royal’ from our title. Five years later, I reviewed the decision and found that there was substantial confusion in London as there are other Lancaster-named hotels. Our staff wanted the ‘Royal’ back and when I presented our owner with the results of my research, it was the easiest yes I have ever had. We decided that the Royal should return as part of the refurbishment. I am very proud that we’re now back as the Royal Lancaster London.
The hotel will have 221 bedrooms, an all day dining restaurant, fitness centre and meeting space.
Celtic Football Club have received planning permission in principle to build a hotel and museum at Celtic Park. The hotel, is expected to have 175 to 200 bedrooms and up to five storeys. The plans also include a museum, a retail store for club merchandise and a new ticket office – at an estimated cost of £18m.
The first phase includes the launch of 95 new and luxurious guest rooms and suites in the Knightsbridge wing, the hotel’s classic entrance, notable main lobby and reception lounge have been redesigned to maximise natural daylight, and the building’s iconic facade has been renovated.