Bournemouth Food Festival

We are officially "On tour!"

Celebrating a Quarter Century of service

In the modern business world, "a job for life" is most certainly a thing of the past, which is why i believe that exceptional length of service is a real badge of honour.

I was delighted to set up a little suprise celebration for our Night Manager - Ian Gallanders this morning, to recognise the 25th anniversary of the day that he joined Marriott Hotels.

A whole quarter century ago today, Ian joined our Swansea hotel as a Conference & Banqueting Porter from where he move on and up the ranks, taking in the Security department and then into rooms division, before coming here to the Highcliff as Night Manager some 12 years ago.

Congratulations Ian - an awesome thing to celebrate and I hope that you make the most of the truly fantastic benfts of being a member of Marriott's very exclusive and very special Quarter Century Club!

Less than 5 weeks to go

The Bournemouth season has a brand new curtain raiser in the form of The Wheels Festival.

Over the next few years I believe this three whole days of wheels based indulgence will be as big as our awesome Air Festival. In the same way that there are bragging rights associated to having "been there," at Goodwood's first Festival Of Speed, I honestly think this first Wheels Festival will be the start of something very special.

Happy Birthday Mr Marriott

Happy Birthday Mr Marriott.

I consider myself to have been very fortunate to have had three fantastic role models whilst growing up, in my father and two wonderful grandfathers; three very different men, with different perspectives on life, from whom I respectively had three great lessons in;  Entrepreneurship, Work ethic and Family values. I may not have overtly recognised that I carried those values close to me, but I now recognise that this is why joining Marriott felt like coming home. I joined the company to gain the experience of a new opening and then hopefully move on to my ultimate desire, to run my own business - that was 20 years ago and the culture of this business is what has kept me and many more like me here. That culture is all about one man - Mr Bill Marriott

At 82 years old today, he remains the single most powerful influence on our culture.
I had the huge pleasure of being invited to dinner at his home a few years ago with a group of colleagues........  Now, we were all staying together in a hotel in Bethesda, so it would have been so easy for Mr Marriott to simply attend a dinner that we were already having as a group in the hotel, but it was clearly very important to him that we were invited into his home, to be personally welcomed and hosted by himself and his wife Donna – That single gesture absolutely reinforced for me the values of our company and the importance of putting our people first.

Happy Birthday Mr Marriott

Let the sun shine

Great weather for business

20 degrees in mid March; I am loving the weather at the moment, everyone is happy, I get to spend my days off at the beach hut with my children, but more exciting than all that - the UK looks like a great option for an Easter break and that is great news for UK PLC and of course, for my business.

Until two weeks ago, you would have been forgiven for believing that the whole of Dorset was under water and the last thing you would have been thinking about would have been a family stay here during the Easter break.

Fortunately - just as we hit the traditional booking window for the Easter fortnight, the sun is out and plans to visit UK short break destinations are being hatched up and down the country.

Mr Marriott's 12 Rules For Success

It is fair to say that they have served him well and I am sure that we can all take a leaf from this book:

1. Challenge your team to do better and do it often.
2. Take good care of your associates, and they'll take good care of your customers, and they'll come back.
3. Celebrate your peoples' success, not your own.
4. Know what you're good at and keep improving.
5. Do it and do it now. Err on the side of taking action.
6. Communicate by listening to your customers, associates and competitors.
7. See and be seen. Get out of your office, walk the talk, make yourself visible and accessible.
8. Success is always in the details.
9. It's more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.
10. Customer needs may vary, but their bias for quality never does.
11. Always hire people who are smarter than you are.
12. View every problem as an opportunity to grow.

Ladies & Gentleman, I give you a legend......

The concept of "Employee of the month" is not a new one, indeed here at Marriott, our hotels have been recognising our Associate's of the Month and subsequently Associate's of The Year since pretty much the very start of the organisation.

With growth in social media and the additional feedback on guest experience that it provides, we are never short of great examples of where one of our team has "gone the extra mile" for a guest and becomes a strong nomination for Associate of the Month. It would be unusual for me not to have at least ten names to consider each month, often with numerous and different nominations for each person.

But what about the guys that the customer rarely gets to see, I am talking about the team based in the "heart of the house." The guys that have got our back, every hour of every day! Meet Kamil; A true legend here at The Highcliff, responsible for all goods received at the hotel and managing our team of stewards. He is quite literally a legend, always there when you need him and ready to step up and do more without being asked whilst fulfilling a role that quite simply would bring much of the hotel to a halt if not executed with aplomb.

A worthy and overdue winner of Associate of the Month here at the Highcliff.

My top 12 reasons to visit Bournemouth in 2014

By no means the diminutive "what's on" list for Bournemouth, just the stuff that really floats my boat:

24th Feb. Rizzle Kicks - Bournemouth O2 Academy
Get down with the, down with the......

10th & 11th May Christchurch Food & Wine Festival

24th - 26th May. Bournemouth Wheels Festival. Wheels, power, elegance. From the team that bring you the world famous Air
Festival, this brand new event for 2014 will be Britain's
biggest wheels themed family event. Hot rods to
skateboards, F1 cars to racing bikes, monster trucks to
bmx, a fantastic long weekend is planned.
www.bournemouthwheels.co.uk

30th May - 1st June Powerboat P1 & Aqua X Jetski Championship

20th - 29th June. Bournemouth Food & Drink Festival
Ten whole days of foodie fun. The talented boys and girls
from The Highcliff Grill will be doing their thing in the
restaurant and down in the town square.
www.bournemouthfoodanddrink.co.uk

11th & 12th July. British Beach Polo Championships
Sandbanks Beach.

13th July. Bournemouth Pier to Pier Swim
Europe's biggest charity swim takes to the water.
www.bhf.org.uk/piertopier

28th - 31st August. Bournemouth Air Festival
www.bournemouthair.co.uk

6th & 7th Sept. Beaulieu Autojumble
A petrol head's nirvana, Europe's largest classic car swap
meet. www.beaulieu.co.uk

30th Oct - 2nd Nov. John Bishop, live at The BIC


Summer Specials

Every Sunday - Classic Cars On The Prom. An eclectic line up guaranteed every Sunday afternoon and right outside The Highcliff.
www.classiccarsontheprom.com

Every Friday - Friday night fireworks. The most fantastic and free
firework display is launched off the end of Bournemouth
pier every Friday night; 25th July - 22nd Aug. Enjoy a
sundowner and join the other Highcliff guest on our
lawn, for the very best vista point for this great show.

Massive Monday

That's what the recruitment industry call today - the first Monday back to work after New Year's Day.

Today is the most popular day in the year, not only to look for a new job, but also to look for opportunities to change career. More than one in four of us will have a complete career change in our lives and the break over Christmas and the New Year is fertile time to reflect and consider new opportunities.

So what about a move into the hotel industry? Sure, some of our roles are particularly technical, especially in the Kitchen, but front of house, we are always looking to recruit genuine people’s people, with a natural warmth and hospitality that training seldom provides. Here at The Highcliff we have a recruitment mantra: “hire for attitude, train skills.”

So, how about it? Be a part of "Massive Monday" and log on to Marriott.com/careers today and take a look where a Marriott journey might take you. From New York to New Delhi, from Brisbane to Bournemouth,.... especially in Bournemouth, we have great hotels looking for great people, right now.