Interesting reading... Vice president of F&B – Asia, Middle East, Africa, IHG, Phil Broad Animating the world of food and beverage, vice president of F&B – Asia, Middle East, Africa, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), Phil Broad exclusively speaks to Tatiana Tsierkezou about the fundamental elements to be considered when creating a restaurant concept, the impact dining outlets have on a hotel’s overall performance and much, much more. TTG: Please tell me a bit about yourself and your experience in your field. I oversee more than 800 restaurants and bars across Asia, Middle East and Africa which serve 40 million customers a year across our IHG brands. These include InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Staybridge Suites. IHG will be adding more than 200 restaurants and bars to the count over the next three to five years as we open the 137 hotels in our pipeline across the region. In my current role, I look at IHGs F&B growth strategy while integrating innovation into the business. I am personally passionate about food and believe positive dining experiences are what bring our customers back to our restaurants and bars, so it is my aim to merge the two and ensure we are constantly innovating to deliver unique experiences through our people and F&B concepts. More than 29,000 people work in IHG’s food and beverage outlets across Asia, Middle East and Africa, making up about 50 per cent of IHG’s total employees in the region; and part of my role is to ensure we continue to attract, develop and nurture our F&B talent at all levels. Thats how we bring great service to life. TTG: What are the crucial factors that must be taken into consideration when developing an F&B concept? We frequently talk about innovation and concepts to make a restaurant successful, but at the end of the day it is the whole experience which makes a restaurant a dining destination of choice. Success comes from getting the basics right – its the little things that matter. Our F&B offerings are tailored to fit our nine distinct hotel brands as well as each hotel’s specific location. We do this to ensure we maximise the potential of each hotels space while meeting the markets needs. We believe having the right people deliver our F&B offerings is a crucial part of making it successful. That is why we offer rewarding career opportunities in F&B to attract the right talent. In the Middle East alone we have almost 10,000 colleagues working in F&B across all IHG hotels – thats 40 percent of the total number of employees in our owned and managed hotels alone. We also work with the best culinary talents from around the world to create truly global dining experiences across the region. We currently work with three-Michelin-starred Chef Pierre Gagnaire at ANA InterContinental Tokyo and InterContinental Dubai Festival City, and Jason Atherton whom weve just announced will be opening his first restaurant in the Middle East at the upcoming InterContinental Dubai Marina which will launch later this year. There are more to come and we believe these partnerships add an extra reason for customers to visit our hotels and restaurants. These partnerships have also created some great new opportunities for us. One good example is our recently announced InterContinental Childrens Menu which is the result of a partnership between InterContinental London Park Lanes celebrity chef, Theo Randall from and renowned childrens author Annabel Karmel. The menu will be launched in all our InterContinental hotels and resorts around the world this year. Finally, one observation Ive had from managing the F&B outlets under my charge is that in this day and age, a restaurant which doesn’t have a digital presence will find it difficult to compete. The guest experience is evolving all along the entire travel journey and today consumers are connected 24/7 through multiple devices. Our 2014 travel trends report shows that mobile is becoming crucial in travel marketing; and with mobile penetration rates rising every day, it is only to a restaurants advantage to capitalise on social channels. Most of our hotels have an active presence in social media and you will regularly see me taking pictures of our hotel teams and outlets and using the hashtag ‘#IHGFoodie’ which we’re using to share photos amongst our internal teams – to encourage and share the infectious enthusiasm for F&B that exists within IHG. TTG: How can a signature restaurant positively impact a hotel’s performance? Our results in 2013 show what an important role F&B plays in our business, contributing to the majority of our non-rooms revenue – about 15 percent of our total gross revenue globally and more than 40 percent of our total gross revenue in AMEA and Greater China. At IHG more people eat with us than stay with us and that gives us a real focus on our ‘F&B Business’. Having quality restaurants may not necessarily have a direct impact on occupancies, but they are integral to building a positive image and experience around our hotels which then lead to us gaining top of mind recall amongst our customers. This is especially true for this part of the world, where we have huge F&B markets such as Japan which gives us the opportunity to drive more business through non-staying guests – particularly local residents eating and drinking with us. This is important in a market like AMEA where we are the largest restaurant and bar operator with more than 800 restaurants and bars, serving 40 million customers a year including 10 million in conference and banqueting. TTG: Following on from the news about IHG’s first global children’s menu, designed by celebrity chef, Theo Randall and child food expert. Annabel Karmel, how important do you feel it is to cater to the tastes of younger clientele? Guests are our focus on everything we do. Many families stay with us and we understand how important is for them to know their children are eating well. However, sometimes it is also difficult to get children excited about the food placed in front of them. Children are naturally inquisitive, and grown-ups are often surprised by the flavours they enjoy. Sometimes it takes a little encouragement, and a holiday with the family can be a great opportunity to explore new and exciting foods. One of the quickest ways children can learn about different cultures and cities is through the flavours of cuisines at each different destination and this is something we hope to bring to life for the children who visit InterContinental restaurants around the globe. Our partnership with Theo Randall and Annabel Karmel is based on the principle of ‘Food Exploration’ which is all about creating food experiences children will find intriguing and exciting. At the same time the parents staying with us are reassured that our children’s menus are nutritionally balanced – just another way we endeavour to give our guests piece of mind when they are away from home.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 07:26:41 +0000
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