CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil
President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada
Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum
chandij@sympatico.ca

Five-Star Hotels in Colombo

In 1986, there were only five five-star internationally branded hotels in Sri Lanka (InterContinental, Oberoi, Taj, Ramada Renaissance and Le Meridien). A Hilton International was nearing completion and planned to open in 1987. These hotels were located close to each other in Colombo and had only a total stock of 2,300 five-star rooms. All of these hotels had multiple food and beverage outlets and the largest banquet facilities in the country. Le Galadari Meridien was distinctively different from its competitors in Colombo.

Air France established Le Meridien Hotels in 1972. The chain’s hotels initially offered accommodation mainly for Air France flight crews and passengers in their major airport hub cities, around the world. Air France promoted the chain and handled reservations for it. The advanced reservation systems in the airline industry strongly influenced booking systems in all of the major international hotel chains. The first Le Meridien property was a 1,000-room hotel in the heart of Paris, the Hotel Meridien Paris, today known as Le Méridien Etoile.

The French style promoted by the European ambience, fashionably appointed rooms and expensive bedroom amenities. This French flair continued with French-designed staff uniforms, a wide collection of beautiful and large paintings done by French artists and a wider choice of wines and cheeses. All of these features truly enhanced the general quality of Le Galadari Meridien. Like all other five-star internationally branded hotels in Colombo, Le Meridien invested heavily on staff training and development. The hotel lived up to its original slogan: “French Style, Sri Lankan Smile!”

Le Galadari Meridien was the only hotel at that time in Sri Lanka to open with 500-rooms. Mr. Steffan Pfeiffer, who opened the hotel in 1984 as the General Manager, recruited me as the Acting Food & Beverage Manager in the mid-1986. He, as well as the outgoing Assistant Food & Beverage Manager and the outgoing Banquet Manager, worked with me for only a few days. I did not have the opportunity to meet my predecessor, a French hotelier, R. Garoute, who had held dual responsibilities as the Food & Beverage Manager and the Executive Assistant Manager. In the absence of a systematic hand over, I had to learn the ropes quickly and take over a large division.

Lifelong Le Meridien Friendships

French Executive Chef Emile Castillo, a key member of my team, commenced on the same day that I joined the hotel. After the initial culture shock, the two of us got along very well and became lifelong friends. In the late 1980s, Emile was an occasional, Sunday lunch visitor at my family home in the suburbs of Colombo.

Later in 1997 when I was the General Manager of Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus hotel, Emile accepted an invitation from me. I was introducing Le Meridien Brand to the largest five-star business hotel in Jamaica, and the French food festival Emile organized there was a big help. Until his retirement, Emile eventually spent 27 years as the Executive Chef of Le Parker Meridien Hotel in New York, USA, where his regular customers included President Bill Clinton. During some of my visits to New York, I stayed with Emile and his family. He and his Sri Lankan wife visited my family during their last visit to Canada, a few years ago.

Shortly after I had joined Le Galadari Meridien in Colombo, the company sent a veteran French Hotelier, Mr. Jean-Michel Varichon, to be the Acting General Manager. He had been involved with 28 Le Meridien hotel openings around the world. He was a member of the Le Meridien corporate team in Paris. I quickly realized that his task was to re-organize the hotel in keeping with the latest Le Meridien quality standards, and then hand over the management to the next General Manager who was coming from France.

Mr. Varichon was a hard task master and a walking encyclopaedia on international hotel management. The senior executive team at Le Galadari Meridien felt harassed by his frequent challenging questions and lectures with details of highly technical aspects of hotel keeping. He also had a dry sense of humour. One day during a serious meeting, realizing that he had pressured the senior management team to the limit, he warned, “You better complete all the tasks I delegated to each of you quickly. Otherwise, I will extend my stay in Colombo!” When the managers laughed nervously, he said, “I am not joking!”

His nickname among Le Meridien hoteliers was “Monsieur Le Meridien”. He was a perfectionist and a very knowledgeable teacher. During the short time I worked with him, I absorbed all Le Meridien information I could like blotting paper. When I opened Le Meridien in Jamaica, Mr. Varichon arrived there on my invitation to help me with the opening. I could not think of anyone better to advise me.

Thanks to the special training by Mr. Jean-Michel Varichon, I was well-familiar with Le Meridien standards by the time the new General Manager, Jean-Pierre Kaspar, arrived to take over the hotel. Soon after he settled into his new job, Mr. Kaspar became my mentor. In his mid-career, he had been a Food & Beverage Manager and we had similar personalities. Our offices on the mezzanine floor were next to each other. Often, in late afternoons, we had a casual chat over a cup of espresso and cookies in his office. I soon became his trusted wingman.

Our respect for each other was mutual. “Chandi, you are the only person out of 500 full-time employees in this hotel who has been a hotel General Manager. Therefore, you understand my role better than anyone else here,” he once told me. Some years later, Mr. Kaspar left Le Meridien to join another French hotel chain, Sofitel (Accor Group SA). My family and I visited Mr. and Mrs. Kaspar at Singapore Sofitel. After 36 years, we still keep in touch.

Banquet Operation

With ballroom and conference room facilities, adequate to accommodate 1,200 persons for a sit-down meal, Le Galadari Meridien had the largest and the finest five-star banquet space in Sri Lanka at that time. In addition to my duties to administer the Food and Beverage division, in the absence of a Banquet Manager, I also managed the day-to-day banquet operation for a few months.

Soon after I joined the hotel, I personally handled a state banquet hosted by the President of Sri Lanka, Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, in honour of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the President of Bangladesh. My experience in 1984, at the Dorchester in London, serving Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and the Emir of Bahrain was useful in leading that state banquet in Colombo.

Food and Beverage Operations

After a couple of months, I recruited an experienced Banquet Manager, but decided to manage without filling the vacancy of the Assistant Food & Beverage Manager. Partly it was to save some expenses to increase our departmental profits. By directly dealing with six food & beverage outlet managers I aimed to fully understand the day-to-day operational challenges.

These managers who were designated at Le Meridien as ‘Maître d’hôtel’, managed ten operational departments – La Palme D’Or – French Restaurant (with a French Sous Chef), Marco Polo – Oriental Restaurant (with a Chinese Chef de Partie), La Brassiere – 24-hour Coffee Shop, Colombo 2000 – Night Club, Colombo Club – Gentleman’s club, Room Service, Pastry Shop, Rendezvous – Lobby Bar, Dolphin – Poolside Snack Bar and the 15th floor Rooftop Bar.

In addition, four other managers – Executive Chef, Banquet Manager, Chief Kitchen Steward and Food & Beverage Analyst, reported to me directly. Due to the popularity of the ten food and beverage outlets and large banqueting facilities, the Food and Beverage Division of Le Galadari Meridian was generating over half the total revenue of the hotel. I was also overall responsible for 230 full-time staff (including 10 departmental heads) which was nearly half the hotel’s employees. I worked very hard, long hours often till 4:00 am (night club closing time) on Fridays and Saturdays. I never felt tired as I simply loved the challenge of leading such a diverse and a dynamic division.

The Concept of Food and Beverage Management

I clearly understood the concept of food and beverage management. The knowledge I gained in England through in-depth research for my master’s degree dissertation on that topic and the practical experience I gained in food and beverage departments in all 16 five-star hotels in London, was finally becoming very useful.

The concept of food and beverage manager or director was relatively new in the world. During the first half of the twentieth century, most five-star hotels around the world did not make a lot of profit from their food and beverage operations which were often managed as different divisions. There were no divisional heads educated/trained in business administration. From an economic standpoint it was important to attempt to break even in five-star food and beverage operations. Traditionally, more emphasis was given to rooms, because this was where the money was made.

The concept of food and beverage management was developed only in the 1960s by major hotel chains in the USA. The aim was to optimize profits, combining the technical know-how with the business administration skills of a divisional head for the overall food and beverage departments.

Understanding the customer, was the key to optimize revenue and departmental profits. In Colombo, the key reasons for the customers to patronize five-star food and beverage outlets and banqueting facilities were three-fold – status, high quality and superior service. Therefore, compared to four-star, three-star or two-star hotels, the regular customers of five-star hotels were far more demanding. That single factor made it essential to have excellent public relations and highly attentive customer service to ensure high customer satisfaction levels.

Promoting the Chef like a Product

During a brainstorming session with the General Manager, Director of Sales, Public Relations Manager, myself and the advertising agency of the hotel, a question was posed about the focus of a new promotional campaign for the hotel. I suggested that we design a campaign, around the new initiatives the new Executive Chef would be focusing on.

I explained that, “having worked at Trust House Forte’s four-star Pegasus Reef Hotel in the late-1970s, and later at the five-star Hotel Lanka Oberoi as the Executive Chef, Emile Castillo knows Sri Lanka very well and Sri Lankans know him well. We should use him and his name to enhance our image and promote food sales.” All agreed, and we developed a three-stage advertising (ad) campaign focusing on Emile. We kept the artwork and the copy of the initial three teaser ads short and simple.

The first ad appearing on the front page of all major English newspapers, had one short question in large bold letters: “What’s new at Le Galadari Meridien?” There were no visuals, but a large question mark, which attracted attention and created the interest we wanted. The second ad repeated on the same front pages, asked the same question, and with the addition of a large visual of a chef hat. The third ad included a large photograph of Emile in a chef uniform, and a description of his experience since leaving Sri Lanka a few years ago. It also included his new and exciting plans for Le Galadari Meridien. That campaign cost us lot of money, but worked like a charm in reaching our business goal.

Money spent on creative and effective ads is a good investment. Then we followed up with a series of ads and newsletters.Chef Emile Castillo as the Star in a monthly newsletterThe follow up ads focused on what Emile’s new menus for all our restaurants and the new French business lunch at Palme D’Or. That was unique in two aspects – the only authentic French restaurant in Sri Lanka and the restaurant at the highest elevation in Colombo, at that time. We proceeded with that focus and the campaign worked well.

We wanted to get some professional models to appear in a follow up ad campaign for the French business lunch at Palme D’Or. The models were expensive and as a cost cutting exercise, the Public Relations Manager, Aloma Abeysuriya said, “Chandi, you are a well experienced TV model. Why don’t you appear free for one ad? I can get the ‘handsome’ Assistant Security Manager also to appear free posing like a businessman!” Aloma’s creative idea was accepted and we settled for two ‘free’ models for the second campaign.

‘Free’ models for French Business Lunch at Palme D’Or

The Chef’s Table

Encouraged with the popularity of our new campaigns, we then created a weekly public relations activity – ‘Chef’s Table in the Kitchen’. We invited seven guests every Wednesday for a four course French lunch right inside the kitchen in the midst of culinary action and loud noises. The General Manager, Executive Chef and I joined the lunch as hosts. Each invitee was presented with a chef hat and an apron with Le Meridien logo, which they proudly wore during the meal.

Before lunch, Emile conducted a quick tour of the kitchen and explained the duties of his Sous Chefs and Chef de Parties, who led a kitchen brigade of 80 culinary professionals. We then sat at a roundtable with ten chairs to enjoy Emile’s new creations, every week. The lunch with matching French wines ended with a presentation of the menu cards signed by Emile. Aloma ensured that the photographs taken during lunch were sent to each invitee within 24-hours.

The Chef’s Table initiative became very popular and the talk of the town among the corporate leaders of Colombo. I was amused when very senior business leaders called us to find a way to get invited to the Chefs Table. It became like a status symbol and many business leaders proudly displayed their Le Meridien Chef hats, kitchen aprons and framed photographs from the exclusive event they attended, in their offices.

After that, we organized a string of major French food festivals with many sponsors with French connections. These events generated much publicity in the local media. Soon we increased Le Galadari Meridien food sales by 50%. Emile became a household name in Colombo. He also regularly appeared in French TV shows such as ‘Bonsoir’ hosted by well-known Corporate Etiquette Trainer – Kumar de Silva.