THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW/Allan Federer, general manager of Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Ireland:COST-CUTTING, says Allan Federer, is a chump's game. "You can cut 5 per cent off anything," he adds, quoting Lee Iacocca, the man who saved Chrysler back in the 1970s and became one of the first celebrity business gurus on the back of it.
The US motor company needs saving again, although it’s no longer Iacocca’s problem. It’s not Federer’s either. His job is to keep Ireland’s only Ritz-Carlton on the road.
The 200-bedroom hotel opened in Ennis-kerry, Co Wicklow, in the shadow of the Sugarloaf mountain, in autumn 2007, just as the phrases “credit crunch” and “subprime” were entering the vocabulary. Federer arrived last June, just as the phrases “financial meltdown” and “recession” were about to join them.
He came from the more exotic Singapore Ritz-Carlton, and brought with him 28 years of experience in the business, which took in Istanbul and North America, including his native Canada.
It’s not an ideal time to be running a hotel pitched at the high end of the market. In fact, unless you’re offering free beds to indigent bankers, it’s not an ideal time to be running a hotel pitched at any market. Nevertheless, Federer seems pretty happy about it all.
“It’s my fifth economic downturn,” he says cheerfully. “There’s nothing new under the sun; you just have to find a way, and there’s no secret to that. This year may be desperate, but it’s not hopeless. We’re full two days a week, and it’s improving constantly, so we’re working on extending that to three days, four days, right up to seven days.”
Finding a way through the recession does include cutting costs, but he argues that it does not mean taking Iacocca’s chump’s route and simply lopping 5 per cent off the top. There’s more to it than that. “You have got to get your costs in line,” he says. “If you’re a luxury provider, you have to keep providing luxury, but you also have to straddle the middle market without giving up who you are.”
Not giving up who you are is a recurring theme with Federer. Whatever else, he’s adamant that the brand’s stated values – luxury, high-end service – have to remain intact, as customers still have certain expectations. But, doesn’t that leave less room for manoeuvre?
“You have to be creative. If you have three restaurants, you might not operate all of them on the same day. But you can’t just cut costs, you have to find new markets as well. You have to include things. For instance, we can include a spa; if it’s going to be sitting there, we may as well provide it.”
The new markets could potentially come from across a wide spectrum – anything from families to special interest groups. “People still want to travel, people still want that time and that luxury experience,” he argues.
Getting a lot of them to travel to this country, and to stay at his hotel, is understandably a big concern for Federer. And he has a lot of nice things to say about what Ireland has to offer tourists.
He’s getting first-hand experience of this in the Ritz-Carlton, surrounded as it is by picture postcard views such as those of Powerscourt House and gardens, the Wicklow mountains and Enniskerry village.
“Ireland has incredible natural resources. We could be world-class branded as a tourist product,” he says. He uses the phrase “could be” instead of “are” because he believes that the industry, State agencies and those responsible for managing tourism infrastructure do not knit together as they should, even though they largely share the same goals.
“What I’m saying is that it can be much better aligned,” he says, adding that a “tourism czar” could well be the best way of pulling the various strands together. The co-ordination should stretch to branding, he believes, and he half-jokingly suggests hiring fellow Canadian and style pundit, Tyler Brûlé, who was consulted about Swiss International Airlines’ image when it launched.
Because it’s the first place where many visitors touch down, he says Dublin airport has a key role to play. “The welcome you get is very important,” Federer argues. With that in mind, he says recent long delays in getting people through immigration were not ideal.
He cites this as an example of where two agencies who deal with visitors need to “align” more closely. Dublin Airport Authority provides the facilities, but it’s the Garda that processes visas. Federer argues that it’s not in either organisation’s interest to have delays which were said to last up to 90 minutes.
But most of all, it’s not in the visitors’ interest, and they are unlikely to distinguish between gardaí and airport staff. He points out that people could have appointments, places to be, or they could simply be anxious to get through the airport, pick up their bags and get to wherever it is they are going. The overall first impression left by an experience such as a long wait for a passport check could colour someone’s view of their entire visit.
He’s hopeful that the work now under way at the airport is going to make a difference for the better, but he argues that, while it is still going on, the airport needs to work even harder at making sure everything goes smoothly for those going through it.
Federer also cautions that the airport’s expansion has to work, and argues that this applies to all airports in the State. “If you want to shoot oneself in the foot, look at how Heathrow has been punished for its problems,” he says. “If you do not get the airport right, you will discourage people from coming here.”
He believes that the National Conference Centre, being developed by a company in which the Ritz-Carlton’s owner, Treasury Holdings, is a major shareholder, will be another piece of the jigsaw. The hotel will potentially benefit directly from this, but it is more likely to get a boost from the fact that the centre could open the Irish market to new visitors, who will hopefully return to explore further, and especially as far as Enniskerry.
Developing a crossover between business and tourist travellers is an idea he returns to several times. The basic argument is that if business travellers have a good experience, they will be more inclined to return as tourists. Similarly, people who come here as tourists could decide it’s a good place to have a conference or some other corporate event.
That’s not so far-fetched. This week, the Europe, Middle East, Africa division of a global electronics giant, believed to be Sony, has block booked the Ritz-Carlton for a two-week corporate gathering.
That’s two weeks about which Federer does not have to worry. Presumably he’s hoping that this week’s visitors will enjoy themselves enough to come back and help fill rooms for some of the other 50 weeks.
Name:Allan Federer
Position:General manager of Ireland's only Ritz-Carlton hotel, in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow
Background:Originally from Canada, he has 28 years' experience in the hotel and hospitality industries. Before coming to Ireland, he managed the Ritz-Carlton Millenia in Singapore, and prior to that he ran the brand's hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. Federer was also previously general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, Montreal and has held several senior regional positions in a number of luxury and boutique hotels in North America. He is a graduate of Cornell University's hospitality and advanced management programmes. He read history and literature at the University of London and studied at Bishop's College School, in Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada.
Family:Married with two children – a son and a daughter.
Hobbies:Golf and sailing.
