THE RISE AND RISE OF THE DORCHESTER COLLECTION

Christopher Cowdray is boldly building one of the industry’s most sophisticated brands and a hotel management company bent on defining the meaning of luxury whilst seducing a new generation of customers.

It was an opportunity and a challenge. I was privileged to be offered the role of CEO for Dorchester Collection back in October 2007, and embraced the opportunity to head up one of the world’s most desirable hotel portfolios. My brief from our owners was to create a global brand of individual iconic hotels. Almost, but not quite, a contradiction in terms. You could argue that most successful global brands have a homogeneous product, offering consistently the same experience wherever – that is, in whatever country -- the consumer purchases it. Our challenge was to do the opposite: to create a brand where each hotel can celebrate its uniqueness and ’style of individuality’. At Dorchester Collection, it is the very differences of each hotel that unites them.

Of course, there are certain standards that each hotel must meet, such as a desirable location in one of the world’s greatest cities, outstanding décor, flawless service, a destination spa, award-winning cuisine, leading-edge technology. The list goes on. But every Dorchester Collection hotel goes beyond these criteria. Each one is steeped in history and heritage; it is the place to see and be seen in that city, an icon in its own right.

Laying the foundations

Our ‘style of individuality’ influences everything we do, from Operations to Human Resources, from Development to Sales & Marketing, from Purchasing to Communications. Over the past year and half, I have been working with Dorchester Collection’s corporate team and the hotels’ executive teams to build a solid foundation that positively encourages the hotels to express their own personalities, whilst at the same time operating within a structured brand framework.

One of our very first actions was to set a clear vision and mission for the company. Our vision is to be ‘The ultimate hotel management company, with a passion for excellence and innovation, honouring the individuality and heritage of its iconic hotels’. We recognise that we will only ever achieve this by focusing on our people, our guests and our owners, so we developed a mission statement to provide clear guidance to our 4000 employees as to what we have to do to accomplish our vision.

By focusing on ‘the style of individuality’, we have discovered a winning formula, one that appeals to our people, our guests and our owners.

Our guests are attracted by the fact that our hotels are not part of a cookie-cutter global hotel chain where one bedroom looks much the same as the next, and where staff must work to a strictly mandated set of service standards.

And our owners are happy with the performance results that are achieved. All of our hotels consistently rank number one or two in their marketplace versus the competition. What’s more, owners are able to retain the originality and uniqueness of their ‘trophy’ assets without sacrificing them to the standardisation of another luxury global hotel chain.

The importance of innovation

If there is one thing I have learnt in my career in the luxury hotel industry, it is that you cannot assume that because you offer the best service and the best product in the marketplace your customers will automatically be satisfied. Quite the contrary, luxury brand consumers are constantly looking for the next best thing and their expectations rise continuously. I spent many years as General Manager in many of the world’s finest hotels, and unless you strive relentlessly to enhance the guest experience you will soon find that your hotel loses its appeal.

We are very fortunate at Dorchester Collection to have the support of our owners who recognize the value of investing in the product and the service to stay at the forefront of hotel luxury. We’ve worked with world-renowned designers to re-energise our hotels, from Thierry Despont at The Dorchester to Patrick Jouin at the Plaza Athenee to Philippe Starck at Le Meurice. We’ve partnered with the leaders in their field to create desirable destination spas, happening bars, exquisite suites and exciting public spaces. By constantly reinventing and enhancing the experience at our seven hotels, not only can we retain our existing clients, but also seduce a new generation of guests.

Disciplined growth

Our vision determines our growth strategy. We want to grow through management contracts as well as asset ownership, but we have to be very careful which hotels we welcome into the ‘collection’.

They have to be individual enough to fit the mould! Our ambition is to have 15 hotels in key gateway cities, predominantly in Europe and North America, within the next 5-10 years. We are already well on the way. In the summer of 2008 we announced two new properties in North America, The New York Palace and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. The New York Palace enjoys an outstanding location in midtown Manhattan and is set to benefit from significant investment over the coming few years to make it one of New York’s premier hotels. Hotel Bel-Air has been Hollywood’s celebrity hideaway for over 60 years, nestled in 12 acres of beautiful landscaped gardens, and in 2009 it will benefit from the launch of an exceptional new spa.

The year 2010 promises to be an exciting one for Dorchester Collection as we will be opening two new hotels in the UK. The first will be a 70-room country house hotel near Ascot in Surrey, set in 200 acres of parkland with its own destination spa and equestrian centre. The second will be a sister property to The Dorchester, located just a stone’s throw away at 45 Park Lane with 50 contemporarily designed guest rooms and an all-day dining restaurant. Both hotels will bring something characteristically new and individual to the marketplace and are guaranteed to create a buzz in the London luxury hotel scene.

Living a life of luxury

I have been tremendously fortunate to build a career in not only the hotel industry, but the luxury hotel industry. When I started out in Zimbabwe, I would never have imagined that almost 30 years later I would be given the responsibility and the honour of cultivating one of the world’s leading hotel collections. We have made great strides since the launch of Dorchester Collection in 2006, and I am under no illusions that we still have a lot of ground to cover to achieve our vision. But one thing is for certain -- it is an exhilarating and rewarding journey to be on!