5 Minutes With Sir Rocco Forte, Hands-On Chairman

By Derek Gale, Senior Editor -- Hotels, 8/1/2008

The Rocco Forte Collection, a group of highly individual luxury hotels, comprises 11 properties in key cities across Europe. In the past two years, the collection has added hotels in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Geneva, with another opening this fall in Prague. HOTELS caught up recently with the collection’s chairman, Sir Rocco Forte, to discuss the group’s marketing and growth plans, as well as his level of personal involvement.

HOTELS: How do you feel about the success of the group’s rebranding a year ago from Rocco Forte hotels to The Rocco Forte Collection?

Forte: I think basically it has [been successful]. We are in the process of gradually changing all our collateral. I’m not a sort of great marketer—a name is a name. It’s what you make it—what you do with the product that at end of day is the most important thing. That means keeping the product fresh, keeping the levels of service very high and working all the time to improve that.

The rebranding coincided with the move to our own GDS code last October. This effectively emphasizes the collection as an independent group of hotels. We’ve grown the volume of business through the GDS quite considerably as a result of this.

HOTELS: Five new hotels are due to open within three years, including properties in Sicily (2009), Marrakech (2010), Saudi Arabia (2011) and Abu Dhabi. Are there any other upcoming deals/projects that you can discuss?

Forte: There is nothing else we can announce at the present time. We [are in] discussions on a number of projects. There’s a certain momentum with the group—now that we’ve become established as a brand with a distinct image, people are interested in what we do. Developers and owners coming to us and asking us to manage their hotels means we have arrived to some degree. People are coming to us because they want our type of hotel. That means that brand has made a strong impression.

HOTELS: What markets are most desirable for additional growth moving forward, both in Europe and the Middle East and outside the region?

Forte: The original intention was to create a European luxury hotel group with coverage in all major European cities. We haven’t got there yet. Paris, Madrid, Milan, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice and Moscow are all very important cities for us, in which we are not represented, and we need to be [in order] to be the premier luxury group in Europe.

The move into the Middle East has been on the basis of management contracts, and I think we’ll see quite a lot coming from that area over next few years. The Middle East market is a very important market for us in our European hotels, therefore having a presence there is very worthwhile.

[From there], I’d rather go east before going further south. I want to go to New York—it is the only place in the States I want to go to. It is an eastern facing city—almost a European city. So we’re actively looking in New York to see if we can find something suitable.

HOTELS: What other collections, companies or brands do you consider competition? How does The Rocco Forte Collection differ from those competitors?

Forte: I’d say our main competitor that I admire most of all is Four Seasons. They have a very strong following and are very effective operators. In any city they go into, they tend to achieve the No. 1 position in yield quite quickly. I greatly admire what Isadore Sharp has done in ensuring certain service levels in his hotels.

The difference between us and Four Seasons is our hotels have a much more individual feel than theirs. They have a much more corporate feel. We try to do hotels to suit locations and destinations much more than they do.

HOTELS: Is it correct that you are personally involved with each property in the collection? If so, how?

Forte: I’m involved initially in the selection of each property. If there is something that looks interesting, I’ll go see it myself straight away. The location of a property and the character of a property is a key decision, so it is important for me to be involved.

[In addition], I get involved in the planning of properties from a functional aspect. How rooms are divided and how restaurants and the back of house are set up is something I spend time on.

Then once properties are up and running, I visit them regularly. I take a keen interest in the development of product and the service levels we are giving in our hotels, which is key to any luxury hotel.

The challenge for me is at the present time I’m able to visit the hotels quite regularly, several times a year. That’s going to become more difficult in the future, and I’ll have to make more efficient use of my time when I visit the hotels.

HOTELS: What other challenges do you face moving forward?

Forte: When you have a handful of hotels, you can run them on an ad hoc basis. As you grow, suddenly you have to start systemizing much more. The important part of our group is that there is an owner who cares and is involved. I want to be able to continue to add that feeling and influence as we get bigger. I don’t know how big we want to become—we’ll have to see how things go. I think we can get to 30 properties and still have a personalized touch to the business, but after that I don’t know.

HOTELS: What are you doing across the collection or at individual properties to “go green?”

Forte: We do everything that makes sense. Even if we weren’t particularly interested in this area, [because of] the cost of energy and the way that has risen in the last few years, it is a necessity—apart from having a green attitude—to find ways to cut energy costs and consumption. So we look at the market and all that comes on stream of an energy-saving nature, and we incorporate programs where it is commercially feasible to do so.

Direct comments to: derek.gale@reedbusiness.com