Care for Your Guests, Love Your Staff, Watch Every Penny
Peter Banks is the Managing Director at Rudding Park, a privately owned luxury hotel with destination spa in Harrogate, Yorkshire.
He’s grown the hotel to what it is today from the initial launch, managing big investments that have led to Rudding regularly winning awards such as ‘Hotel Spa of the Year’ from the AA and ‘Hotel of the Year’ from Visit England.
Summary
My first experience of Rudding Park was my brother’s wedding.
It was a beautiful day in beautiful surroundings at a beautiful hotel.
Subsequently I’ve been back many times to stay at the hotel, visit the spa and eat at the restaurants.
All thanks to Peter Banks.
It was an absolute treat to get to speak to the man behind Rudding and its growth.
Peter has taken Rudding Park from launch to one of the best luxury hotels in the UK and he’s not done yet.
This conversation was fascinating to find out more about what makes Rudding tick behind the scenes, as well as hearing Peter’s plans for the future down to his self confessed nature as a ‘change monkey’.
We go into depth on the culture of a place that has driven such high quality output, with many specific actions on how that’s been done that listeners can take away and implement themselves.
We also cover his experience of running his own place in Southwold for a short period. It didn’t deliver the satisfaction he expected, and we discuss the lessons he learned from that.
And then there’s the Rudding brand, which remains an area of exploration but makes for fascinating insight into how Peter thinks and what Rudding have done to address being such a varied destination with offerings for a wide array of audiences.
Whether you’re an established hotelier, work in hospitality or just run a business in the travel sector I think you’ll find this one fascinating.
Enjoy!
0:03:00
Getting into hospitality
0:09:00
Experience in different hotels
0:14:00
Moving to Rudding Park
0:15:00
Rudding’s growth
0:18:00
The ingredients behind Rudding’s success
0:22:00
Hiring based on culture
0:28:00
The team now
0:29:00
Peter’s day to day routine
0:35:00
The source of big ideas
0:39:00
Different people for different needs.
0:43:00
The ‘retention crisis’
0:48:00
Care for your guests – what makes great customer service
0:54:00
The Southwold project at Sutherland House
1:00:00
Motivation.
1:06:00
Marketing and the Rudding brand
1:18:00
TripAdvisor – what works and what’s changed
1:25:00
Businesses and people that provide inspiration
1:27:00
Advice for people starting out in hospitality
“It’s about constant reaffirmation of good behaviours and stopping bad behaviours. Make sure everyone knows there is only one way out when you offer poor service.”
Peter Banks
Managing Director – Rudding Park
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