I arrived back on Monday from the Best Western International Conference which was held at the unlikely named Gaylords Hotel, Orlando, Florida. The scale of the property was staggering with 1406 rooms, 20 conference rooms, numerous restaurants and shops on site and excellent leisure facilities. The entire site was housed within its own glass ceiling and we had over 1500 staff looking after our needs. The early part of the week was spent in the company of our American colleagues and it was noticeable to me how much more optimistic they were regarding future business levels and the economy in general. The mood was infectious and coupled with some impressive figures on Best Western's global performance this year I came back feeling energised and upbeat only for that feeling to disappear quicker than an English rugby team when I read the papers and listened to the news. I don't know about you, but I'm getting fed up with the constant impression being given of financial armageddon around the corner, come on, surely we've been through far worse than this.
Anyhow I digress, let's get back to the hotel and on an upbeat note, thanks to all of you who have booked for our Christmas Party Night season, we've almost sold out on all our dates and so have put on an additional night for Thursday the 8th of December so those of you who have yet to book can get to one of our evenings. This is priced at £20 per person, which is great value in my opinion. In addition we have some spaces left for our Tea Dance on the 7th and although Christmas Day Lunch is now fully booked, we do have tables available for the New Year's Eve Ball with a Micheal Buble tribute. That reminds me, I must try my dinner suit to see if it's shrunk since last year or as my dear wife puts it, who ate all the pies.
The game season is well underway, we are hosting a number of shooting parties at the moment and one of my favourite parties are arriving later this month. They are a Swiss party and have been coming for the past 10 years, our staff always look forward to their arrival due to the fact they always kindly bring fantastic chocolates with them and I have the privilege of spending a day with them shooting pheasant. Their arrival always reminds me that Christmas is around the corner and we will soon be decorating the hotel in a seasonal theme.
Good news came our way whilst I was away, we received confirmation of winning our class in the Tiverton in Bloom competition, we are delighted to have won this again, beating the golf club into second place, we have a keen rivalry and it's a great tribute to our dedicated gardener Ray deserves this accolade.
Our bathroom refurbishment programme is well underway, 7 have now been completed, I'm delighted with the results and the remainder are expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Finally and to end on an upbeat theme, we were delighted to receive our latest results from Best Western which confirms our guests rate us very highly, over a number of different measures which is then collated to give an overall number, we are rated 8.72 which is in the top 30 Best Western Hotels in the country, I truly believe our staff deserve this and I feel a Christmas party coming on.
Don't forget if you would like to leave comments or questions please contact me through and I will always get back to you.
Rhys Roberts