January 2008

Published on

January 15, 2008

admin

Congratulations

…To Callum Kennedy, Diego Granada, Daniel Healey, Joede Kennedy and the BH team for finishing off the Christmas season with sales up over 10% on last year, despite not having New Years Eve in this month. Pictured here is the Buckland Suite set up as a “Winter Wonderland” on the 15th December. It looked truly superb and the hotel has been at its best throughout this season. [pic top right]

…To Dave Seward, Wayne Turner, Chris Hall, Ben Morcombe, Helen Mitchell and the WLP team for a very busy Christmas season with sales up over 2% on last year, again, despite not having New Years Eve in this month. Pictured left is the front lounge with beautiful Christmas tree. On Christmas Day alone, 259 people were served lunch – an all time record.

… To Sally Wilkinson (Group Sales Manager) on reaching 15 years with Beales Hotels, and to Steve Hand (Estates Team) on reaching 10 years. Both of you are integral to the company and have made a huge contribution over your combined quarter century! [pic right]

Farewell

to Matthew Gundy [pic right] (BH Deputy General Manager) and to Louise Witton (BH Reservations Manager) who have left BH to move to Leeds. Both will be sorely missed from the hotel and we wish them every success in the future.

Bedrooms at WLP

Room 71 is being finished off this week – and being transformed from a very tired bedroom to one truly fit for a 21st Century four star hotel. Room 25 has had an unexpected re-vamp in December after flooding in the bathroom, and Room 45 starts next week to be transformed into a lovely contemporary room with two windows overlooking the hotel lake.

Beales Caterers

our new outside catering business, is being launched this month. We will be targeting fine dining, weddings and marquee events throughout North London and Hertfordshire, for those guests who wish to host their events at home or in another venue, but still want the reassurance of the Beales brand and back up for their big day. The website will be live by mid January and the logo has been selected [right]

Freehold at WLP

after protracted negotiations with Enfield council, and despite a large offer from us, the council have now said that they will not consider the possibility of us purchasing the freehold of WLP. We currently have 60 years left on the WLP lease so there is not an immediate rush, but we do want to progress this issue somehow. There will be more to follow on this story ! (BH is freehold).

Beales Hotel Extension

we are currently not certain that all elements of this project will be in place in time for the board to give the full go-ahead for the full scheme to go ahead in June 08. We will invest in air conditioning for all 53 rooms at BH this spring/summer, a major project in its own right. Here is an exciting vision of how the gym/spa area will look [pic right]

And finally…

…happy new year to one and all, and a chance to look back on 2007 as a year when we achieved huge things with a packed programme of refurbishments at WLP, a massively improved website and branding for the company, and where sales at BH really took off. More than anything, 2007 was the year when both BH and WLP achieved AA ratings of four stars, 2 rosette, 80% and the logic of having two stunning four star hotels so close to each other and so different in style yet so similar in service was suddenly apparent. A great year in 2007, and even more exciting things to come in 2008.