Course favourite

14 June 2001
Course favourite

The cancellation of this year's Cheltenham Gold Cup because of the foot-and-mouth outbreak means the annual hat-show and horse races that comprise Royal Ascot will be more welcome than ever next week. Due to run from Tuesday 19 until Friday 22 June, this major sporting event is expected to go ahead as planned and, when it does, there will be huge sighs of relief at the nearby Royal Berkshire hotel.

"It is the one week of the year when the hotel is transformed. Being only a mile-and-a-half from the race course, and arguably the best hotel in the area, it is where everyone wants to be," says general manager Andrew Robinson, who joined the hotel last July from the 217-bed Watford Jarvis International.

Royal Ascot normally brings in double the amount of trade of a normal week, but Robinson is already predicting revenue to be up by 20% on previous years, thanks to the hotel's recent £1m face-lift.

When Jarvis Hotels took over the running of the Royal Berkshire from Hilton in August 1999, it was clear that a substantial refurbishment job was needed. The 70-bedroom country house hotel had fallen into some disrepair, with a number of rooms unusable. Contractors were called in but, soon after the work started in April last year, it was quickly realised that the hotel also needed a new roof - a fact confirmed by one of the builders falling through it into a top-floor corridor.

Working on such an old building presented daily challenges, says Bradley Cox, chairman of TFL International, the contractor which carried out the work. "It was a surprise a day," he says. "Every time you exposed back to the original fabric, you were finding things that you just couldn't dream would have been there. Plaster just came off the wall in chunks. Ceilings fell down as soon as you touched them."

To keep disruption to guests to a minimum, builders put up partitions which looked like the walls of the hotel and worked behind them. By February, phase one of the face-lift - 21 bedrooms, stairways, roof, corridors, restaurant and a number of the conference suites - was complete. Lady Thatcher was one of the first guests to stay at the refurbished hotel and wrote afterwards to say how much she had enjoyed her stay. The second phase, looking at the remaining bedrooms and public areas, is still under discussion.

It is not just racing fans who stay at the Royal Berkshire. Being within easy striking distance of Wentworth Golf Club, home to the World Match Play, Volvo and PGA Championships, and of Sunningdale Golf Club, the hotel attracts many golfing fans, too. Other events providing potential sources of revenue include the Farnborough Air Show, held every two years, and the nearby attractions of Windsor Safari Park and Legoland.

But, for most of the year, the hotel's revenue stream comes largely from corporate entertaining and conference bookings. The hotel is 25 minutes' drive from Heathrow, traffic permitting, and 40 minutes from Gatwick. Getting into London takes 50 minutes by train and about the same by car. There is also a helipad, which tends to be used once or twice a month.

"Wentworth, Sunningdale and Ascot are important to us," says Robinson, "but things like that traditionally happen at weekends. The main business base of the hotel, because of where we are, is the executive conference market. Sometimes, it is nice for these guys to get out of the hurly-burly of the City and come here to relax."

With 15 acres of grounds, the hotel also does good business in the weddings market, especially as it can offer marquee facilities.

The Royal Berkshire has 60 full-time staff and offers half of them the option of live-in accommodation. Maintenance costs are a substantial part of the annual budget but, insists Robinson, no more than might be expected. "Just because part of the building is so very old," he says, "it does not mean our maintenance costs are terribly high." But, he jokes, he now hopes he will no longer need plastic buckets in which to catch rain-drips.

Next week, the only buckets on show will be for the Champagne. During the four days of Royal Ascot, the number of bottles of bubbly sold at the hotel runs into hundreds. "We have this huge rush of business until about one o'clock, and then it goes very quiet until five or six o'clock, and we are overwhelmed again," says Robinson. "The hotel is completely full for virtually the whole week but, in addition to that, the A329 is a prime route from London into Ascot and there are a lot of people passing our front door.

"There is a lot of corporate entertaining where they will meet here, have lunch here and get coached out to the racecourse, and then come back at six or seven o'clock and either drive home, beg a lift or buy Champagne if they've won."

For the first time this year, the hotel has introduced an Ascot package, with dinner, bed and brunch breakfast for £550 per room.

Despite the foot-and-mouth outbreak's impact on the tourism and hotel trade, Robinson is confident that visitor numbers will be up this year, and occupancy is already running at 100% from next Monday through to the following Friday.

As far as he is aware, he has not lost any bookings directly as a result of foot-and-mouth. Indeed, he has gained some business because of people's fears about visiting other parts of the country. "One company based in London had a number of their people flying in to Heathrow," he says, "and they were due to hop on a coach and travel off somewhere. But they decided they didn't want to travel, so we picked up the business. I suppose every cloud has a silver lining."

FACTS:

Royal Berkshire hotel

London Road, Sunninghill, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 0PP

Tel: 01344 623322

History: the Royal Berkshire began life as a Queen Anne country house called the Oaks in 1705, built by the Churchill family. It became a school for partially sighted girls in 1941 and then, in 1971, it was bought by European hoteliers, the Hoffman family. It was purchased by Ladbroke Hotels in 1985 and then incorporated into the Hilton group. Jarvis Hotels took it over in August 1999.

General manager: Andrew Robinson

Head chef: Daniel Driscoll

Number of bedrooms: 70

Rack rate: £195 per single room

Conference package: £234 a night

Average occupancy (across Jarvis Group): 68%

Achieved average room rate (across Jarvis Group): £51.56

Shareholder structure: operated by Jarvis Hotels and owned by Norwich Union

Restaurant: 72 covers

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