Hotels General Discussion

[Craig]

Yup no one is saying that team leaders aren't spending enough time with their staff on purpose. What people are saying is that factually, from their experience recently is that some have not gained enough training before going it alone. That was blatantly obvious over the last weekend.

Clearly something stopped them from being able to provide adequate support for new staff. If it's a lack of time to be able to properly do so, then could something else be done to help with that? Closing the hotels for a few days, amending bar opening hours for a few training days in the lull between Scarefest and Fireworks for example? Were staff rota'd off purely because the hotels were quiet last week to help with hitting budgets, when ultimately they could've been in for a few hours learning the ropes? Is the capacity of the hotels too high in relation to the service that they can provide? Longer term, does the training programme need a proper review to actually get worthwhile content in there?

No one has had any sort of go at the frontline staff, they are merely pointing out that they did not receive the service that they believed they would get after forking out so much for a hotel stay. An example I used in a conversation earlier was that if I ordered a £15 burger at Shake Shack, I expect a brilliant burger. If I get to the counter and I’m presented with a Rustler's microwave burger for the same price and I’m told it's due to staff not being trained - I would naturally be unhappy. It should be no different with Alton Towers, it may be a service as opposed to a product, but the same principle applies. If customers pay such a high price, then customers will naturally expect a high level of service to go with that.

It works both ways too. A little more time spent in getting staff up to speed on the knowledge required for the job will ultimately make their lives easier. It's counterproductive to just throw people in the deep end and expect them to learn on the job. Mistakes are made, customers are unhappy and employees are unnecessarily stressed out and more likely to walk.

Remember though, many of these issues have been ongoing long before any sort of labour shortage, and long before Covid. The last 18 months have just made things even more obviously apparent.

 

[jmc]

The staffing issues in the hospitality industry are surely compounded at Towers by the very fact it is in the middle of nowhere. Why would someone choose a job working unsociable hours there, when there are likely many places requiring a similar role more locally/less costly?

Gen Z have also now entered the workplace and there are already many reports of their behaviour being wildly different to their older counterparts. It is likely these industries will need to realise quite the shake up is required from an employment perspective.


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[Matt.GC]

I'll repeat for the last time because there's no point in banging on when the narrative is openly changed to fit with the views of others, but I was answering the wonderment expressed as to why hospitality managers are putting the first person they can employ who seems remotely competent in front of customers at the nearest opportunity. I thought the answer was obvious but clearly there seems to be a misconception as to what it's actually like out there.

I agree that Merlin are crap to work for, that they run their parks and hotels into the ground. I agree that they don't pay enough. I agree that the hotels are abysmal for the price charged (I've stayed twice this season and both times it's been the worst I've ever experienced at AT). You'll all know that I'm usually one of the first to line up and give them a bashing.

But 19 year old Ellie who doesn't know what sauvignon blanc is has worked for the business for 5 mins, and yes shock horror she is typical of just about anyone who is employed in this kind of industry. She gets paid £9 an hour, doesn't want to work here for the rest of her life and only took the job because it's the first one that rang her back. Her manager Jake earns less than £30k, works 70 hours per week, weekends and late nights and spends most of his working time interviewing for positions as people hand their notice in and walk out around him. He has 6 staff for a 10 person shift every night, 2 of them are newbies who have done little more than Age Restricted Sales and Fire Safety E Learning in terms of training. Pedro the 5 star experienced barman is so busy trying to put out all the fires he has very little time to look after all the newbies that he's been given to train and does all he can between serving at break neck speed himself.

Change the narrative to Merlin bashing and pretending that all other businesses in similar industries are doing just fine all you want. The fact is that wasn't the point being made earlier in the thread. Low paid tertiary employees have always been thrown in on the job straight away and have never sat in a class room learning the intricacies of grape varieties, the only reason you're noticing it more at the moment is the fact there's so god damn many of them because EVERY employer is struggling to recruit people for entry level positions.

I think there's just some plain snobbery and ignorance at play here. Anyone who thinks things are back to normal out there need to open their eyes and have a good look around them. Bars up and down the country are full of ill trained kids who don't don't know what a pint glass is or whether sauvignon is white or red. Not experienced this? Good for you, I hope you had a good night out but it's absolutely not representative of what's going on in the real world and the attrition numbers I regularly see.

I don't work at AT, for Merlin or even in hospitality. But to pretend this is a local AT problem (and then later frame it as a wider Merlin one when the point is challenged) is just nonsense and frankly mean spirited. Recruitment in these industries is a revolving door at the moment and attrition is shocking.

Anyway, I'm getting way too carried away now so I'll give it rest.

 

[Rob]

I don't work at AT, for Merlin or even in hospitality. But to pretend this is a local AT problem (and then later frame it as a wider Merlin one when the point is challenged) is just nonsense and frankly mean spirited. Recruitment in these industries is a revolving door at the moment and attrition is shocking.

I do not doubt that these problems are happening across the hospitality industry, up and down the country. It is not unique to Alton Towers, it is not unique to Merlin.

However, any individual business are able to make their own choices about how they operate and the standards they wish to uphold. Some businesses have far greater flexibility in how they go about this depending on the state of their finances and what the demand for their business is.

You only have to look at the room rates to see that the Alton Towers hotels must make a small fortune. And with things like breakfast being the cheapest of the cheap, senior management have decided to ensure profit margins are as big as they can be. Fair enough, it is not putting customers off so they can get away with it. But it is quite clear that senior management do not have complete regard for customer experience, and this has been the case since before Covid.

Someone at Alton Towers/Merlin could decide that having anyone working behind a bar who does not know what a pint glass is, or who think that it is reasonable to charge £16 for a £60+ bottle of champagne (yes, this happened) is simply not acceptable and does not meet their brand standards. I have a feeling they don't care too much. As Craig says, they could amend opening times to allow for more dedicated training, or reduce hotel capacity so that it is easier for staff to deal with the guests that are there.

When you pay a premium price, you expect a premium product. This is not being a snob, this is a simple fact. Maybe we are the fools for staying at the hotels, but with the location of Alton Towers there is little alternative if you do want to stay over and have some drinks.

As with any debate on this forum, let's use the Europa-Park example. They are also struggling massively for F&B staff having lost huge numbers during the pandemic. I've not been post-pandemic yet, but I can be pretty sure that if I went to one of their bars and asked for a specific drink on their menu, they would know exactly what it was. Sure, Europa-Park have had to close a load of F&B outlets which is far from ideal, but standards will have been kept in those that are open.

 

[Dave]

From a purely selfish perspective (for Merlin), if you don’t train bar staff properly you can lose your license.

Not understanding your measures for alcohol breaches the law, you also have to wonder if the poor staff member was given the adequate training they needed on their legal responsibilities as bar staff are personally responsible and can be sanctioned if they make certain mistakes.

 

[Kraken27]

From a purely selfish perspective (for Merlin), if you don’t train bar staff properly you can lose your license.

Not understanding your measures for alcohol breaches the law, you also have to wonder if the poor staff member was given the adequate training they needed on their legal responsibilities as bar staff are personally responsible and can be sanctioned if they make certain mistakes.

I volunteer as a Bar Manager at a large CAMRA beer festival in the Midlands. The main breaches which bar staff can be legally held responsible for (& have to pay the £90 fine themselves) are;
1. Serving alcohol to anyone under 18 / serving it to someone you suspect is buying for someone under 18.
2. Serving / continuing to serve someone who is intoxicated.
3. Weights & Measures offences - and we ALWAYS get visits from Trading Standards on this one at the beer festival. They're not even subtle, they come in with a half pint glass with the half pint line still visible on - but they have scratched off the third pint line. They will then try to be served a third pint in the glass with no third line on it & say things like "just fill it to where you think a third is, that is fine" etc. Back in October I was stood next to a bar-staff member who was about to hand over such a "third pint" and took the glass off him. The customer said "well done, you've just saved him £90"... it was Trading Standards.

As has been alluded to in posts above, I will bet these new staff on the hotel bars over Fireworks had been given the absolute minimum training & then put straight on the bar. You'll never stop staff being able to under-charge by ringing the wrong drinks up on the till - but if they were actively being able to override prices of £60 bottles of champagne to £16, then Towers deserve all they get there for deploying a poor till system.

Again, as has been correctly alluded to above, the crux of the problem is that as long as the money flows in, Merlin don't really care about the quality of their RTP hotel offering. If people are willing to pay the prices and be ripped off, then Merlin will keep their RTP offer as an "overpriced Travelodge with a little theming to fool guests that they are getting something a bit special". Or the phrase "you can't polish a t*rd, but you can roll it in glitter to fool a few people" comes firmly to mind.

Finally, I also agree 100% with the Europa Park comparison. Yes, Europa Park have been affected like all employers in the hospitality & leisure sectors by the pandemic. They have made some cuts to the F&B offering, but I'd bet a lot of money that what is on offer is up to the standard their guests have come to expect. Remember their hotels are mainly 4* Superior standard and put Merlin to total shame. I've been in Hotel Colosseo having the buffet dinner on a midweek evening & Roland Mack was wandering round, checking the buffet / tasting food to check things were up the required standard. OK, I know the Mack family live in the Rust area & care about their business... but even if Nick Varney or any Merlin Board Member lived close to Alton Towers, I bet they'd set foot in the hotels once in a blue-moon to check standards. In fact, it would be very interesting to know when the Merlin Board last experienced an overnight stay, meal & drinks in one of their RTP hotels - preferably on a busy weekend evening. I bet they would be shocked.

 

[kydog1299]

Working in marketing in a big casual dining restaurant chain, I can vouch that these recruitment and staff retention issues are a problem across the entire industry at the moment.

However as others have rightly said, there are ways to challenge this. Our business adapted by increasing staff wages for front-line roles, increased the number of staff parties, started a monthly survey to find out from all staff across the business how they're feeling and how they feel about their role (we actually get responses from high-up in the business too, who look at what we're saying and actually make these changes where possible), and have promoted numerous people from our restaurant operations team to help support recruitment across the estate.

Also went hard on adverts in CRM materials and other bits too to increase application numbers, as well as other schemes.

Put this on top of a dedicated team in each restaurant who are promoted to a 'training role' with a higher wage, and an assistant manager in each restaurant dedicated to overseeing the training process and feeding back in manager meetings, and we've now filled most of our gaps across the entire estate.

There has to be an element of proactivity from higher-up to solve these issues. Yes, they'll be a wobbly few months where service standards might not be at their best due to the volume of new starters (most of which are 16-18 at the mo, we pulled some figures that pre-COVID we had 5% 16-18's and we're up to 30% now), however if the training, retention and recruitment processes are fairly bang-on, in a few months' time, standards will elevate.

 

[GaryH]

I priced up a night in December for a Santa sleepover, 2 adults, 1 child, 1 night…..

Only option was an enchanted village lodge (not treehouse) and it was £884

To put that into perspective, I’m staying in a Mr and Mrs Smith 5 star hotel in December, for 2 nights, with spa access, breakfast and high quality dinner with a proper chef and that is costing £800 for the two nights.

Or, I priced up 3 nights in Lapland in December, full board, with flights and transfers, in a decent quality lodge and that was £790 a night for the three of us.

£884 for a night in Alton towers……. The mind just boggles. I love the place but seriously…

 

[Inferno]

That is absolutely staggering that you could fly to and stay in ACTUAL Lapland for less than staying at Alton Towers for the Christmas markets.

Madness.

Who is buying these rooms at these prices?
I mean really?

Maybe my broke ass will just never understand having no concept of value for money

 

[s_g_k]

I priced up a night in December for a Santa sleepover, 2 adults, 1 child, 1 night…..

Only option was an enchanted village lodge (not treehouse) and it was £884

To put that into perspective, I’m staying in a Mr and Mrs Smith 5 star hotel in December, for 2 nights, with spa access, breakfast and high quality dinner with a proper chef and that is costing £800 for the two nights.

Or, I priced up 3 nights in Lapland in December, full board, with flights and transfers, in a decent quality lodge and that was £790 a night for the three of us.

£884 for a night in Alton towers……. The mind just boggles. I love the place but seriously…

It’s mad isn’t it. Me and the Mrs are going to New York for a week over new year and including flights it works out at £267 per night in a 5 star hotel in Manhattan. Makes you wonder who the crazies are that pay AT prices for what is essentially becoming a Butlins in the woods

 

[pluk]

It’s mad isn’t it. Me and the Mrs are going to New York for a week over new year and including flights it works out at £267 per night in a 5 star hotel in Manhattan. Makes you wonder who the crazies are that pay AT prices for what is essentially becoming a Butlins in the woods

Becoming? I don't mean this as a sarcastic response, but this is genuinely a slight on Butlins. Butlins hotel accommodation, food, entertainment, swimming pool, staff and general delivery of product is already vastly superior to Towers at a much lower price. I'm staying for a family of 3 midweek full board next year for £300.

Towers of course has a major advantage compared to Billy Butlins fairground! And it's fair to say Butlins let themselves down with the state of some of the old style accommodation but I'd argue even that is far more acceptable than Towers sheds.

 

[Kraken27]

That is absolutely staggering that you could fly to and stay in ACTUAL Lapland for less than staying at Alton Towers for the Christmas markets.

Madness.

Who is buying these rooms at these prices?
I mean really?

Maybe my broke ass will just never understand having no concept of value for money

I think what Towers / Merlin have cashed in on this past season especially is the element of uncertainty with regard to overseas travel that the pandemic has caused this year. For many people - particularly families with young children - the hassle of all the testing / travel restrictions to comply with was seen as too much hassle, so they stayed at home & did a stay-cation. Add to the risk staying in the UK Means there is no risk of the country you are holidaying in suddenly "go red" and you have a mad scramble to get a flight home pronto (& at a high cost).

All companies offering UK based holidays cashed-in, big time. A company that will remain un-named (but operates from 5 Forest based villages in the UK) was selling it's 4 bedroom Treehouses for a shade under £11k a week for the 6 weeks of the school summer holidays... and all you got included with that was limited swimming sessions & a LOT of pay-extra activities / limited dining out options due to staffing issues.

Now that it looks like things are starting to settle down a bit pandemic-wise, this is where all the UK operators will need to up / maintain their game. As restrictions continue to ease, those cheap low cost air fares / package deals make heading off somewhere abroad for a break an entertaining proposition once again.

As kydog1299 states above, clearly some casual dining chains have noticed the issue and are taking steps to address them. I hope if works out for the chain they work for & that they can retain staff. As kydog1299 states, you don't need to do a lot to improve things. A slight pay uplift, staff parties / nights out (that actually cost very little) both boost morale. Happy workers want to deliver good service, so customer tips improve which boosts pay that bit further. All of a sudden the staff want to stay. The company I referred to above with the expensive treehouses pay pretty much all their bar / waiting staff £9.07/hr & wonder why attrition is through the roof.

 

[Steve74]

There's a lot of first hand examples of sub-standard experiences at the hotels in this thread along with ideas and suggestions to help improve things. I stayed at ATH over Scarefest and was a little disappointed with the room's condition: very tired. The shower hose was coming away from the head so more water went up the wall than on me unless I held it, no USB charging points, no air-con, the extractor fan in the bathroom wasn't working.

It's a very sad state of affairs for the hotels to be in for this thread to even have been created. And this got me wondering...

Because we're on here - a Towers fan site - posting almost every day, by definition we must be passionate about the place or at the very least care for it and don't want to see it decline [further]. In my mind, this puts us in the middle of two groups: the general public (who generally don't care about the resort over and above for their time they're visiting) and the staff, who's job it is to run the place and therefore [should] care (I'm sure the vast majority do). So we can see the resort through the public's eyes but because we're enthusiasts we can see a bit deeper into things, question them and spot the cracks (literally in some cases!).

So why don't we as a fan site (and maybe even team up with Towers Times) write an open letter to Merlin, signed by all of us who want to, expressing our concerns and citing examples of our experiences at the hotel. It may have no effect but if they receive a letter from us and TT too if they're willing - the 2 biggest fan sites - which lets face it give them pretty much free advertising - someone at Merlin HQ may just take note and look into things.

Maybe the admins (here and/or TT) could wangle a meeting with someone high up at Merlin to discuss our concerns? People here know contacts at Towers and Merlin so I'm sure our voice would be heard and taken seriously.

We'll probably just get the standard copy and paste corporate reply and nothing else, and if we do at least we can say we tried.

 

[Plastic Person]

So why don't we as a fan site (and maybe even team up with Towers Times) write an open letter to Merlin, signed by all of us who want to, expressing our concerns and citing examples of our experiences at the hotel. It may have no effect but if they receive a letter from us and TT too if they're willing - the 2 biggest fan sites - which lets face it give them pretty much free advertising - someone at Merlin HQ may just take note and look into things.

Management at Towers absolutely monitor this forum and other fan sites. They're aware of many of the issues discussed, and sometimes even resolve them.

As for an 'open letter', this has been discussed and attempted numerous times over the years. In the past, the Resort have founded (and then rather quickly dissolved) a 'Customer Council', which featured a mix of enthusiasts and normies. They've also launched public-facing campaigns like Towers Loving Care. These have both been overseen by passionate staff at the park.

Otherwise, the results generally fall on deaf ears. Given that Towers is a part of a monolithic corporate structure, and given how ultra-sensitive public communications are in the age of social media, I think the same would happen again.

Controversial as it might sound on an Alton Towers enthusiast forum, the purpose of which is to be enthusiastic about Alton Towers, but you can also vote with your feet. The last time I stayed on resort, I found it not to be worth the money compared to other parks in Europe (and even BPB!), so I stopped doing just that. The enthusiast 'intervention' is usually pointless, but arguably also a little cringeworthy. Still, I get where you're coming from. And it's nothing on that time somebody tried to start a fundraiser to fix Duel...

 

[Matt N]

For what it’s worth, an open letter might work if there’s any issues you want to air; a committee on TowersTimes fronted by @AstroDan wrote an open letter to Nick Varney back in 2011 surrounding various issues, and they actually got a very insightful response from Nick Varney, and as well as that, many of the issues raised were resolved!

 

[Kraken27]

For what it’s worth, an open letter might work if there’s any issues you want to air; a committee on TowersTimes fronted by @AstroDan wrote an open letter to Nick Varney back in 2011 surrounding various issues, and they actually got a very insightful response from Nick Varney, and as well as that, many of the issues raised were resolved!

If my memory serves me right, that would be the letter that alerted Nick Varneys' attention to the "deal" AT Marketing had been done with Tango sponsorship on Oblivion. amongst other issues. It must have been one of AT Marketing's first deals with Leek Signs as the Tango advertising vinyls lasted about a week before they had been almost totally wrecked in the Oblivion queueline.

Again, from what I remember, Nick Varney actually visited and agreed that the sponsorship was "not sympathetically done" [or words to that effect] and it didn't last long.

 

[Matt N]

If my memory serves me right, that would be the letter that alerted Nick Varneys' attention to the "deal" AT Marketing had been done with Tango sponsorship on Oblivion. amongst other issues. It must have been one of AT Marketing's first deals with Leek Signs as the Tango advertising vinyls lasted about a week before they had been almost totally wrecked in the Oblivion queueline.

Again, from what I remember, Nick Varney actually visited and agreed that the sponsorship was "not sympathetically done" [or words to that effect] and it didn't last long.

From what I can tell, Varney actually didn’t know that the sponsorship had been done, and didn’t know the extent to which it was affecting the experience down on the ground.

With Merlin being as big of a company as it is (if anything, it’s only grown bigger since 2011), is it possible that Nick Varney and the higher-ups have a very different idea about how things are down on the frontline compared to how they actually are?

 

[Alsty]

With Merlin being as big of a company as it is (if anything, it’s only grown bigger since 2011), is it possible that Nick Varney and the higher-ups have a very different idea about how things are down on the frontline compared to how they actually are?

That's possibly the case but again that just boils down to apathy and not caring enough.

Earlier up the thread @Kraken27 mentioned how he saw Roland Mack eating in the resort's restaurant. Maybe the senior Merlin management teams should start experiencing their product how their customers do too.

In IT we call it dog-fooding.

 

[Inferno]

The sad reality is, we probably won’t see any real change until there’s some actual competition here in the UK.

As unlikely as the London Resort seems, that would give Merlin a reason to up their game because they’d be touting for the same customers.

As it stands, Merlin can sell every ticket to their events, and regularly fill every hotel room at whatever price they set. Some of the top brass might argue that they have no reason to level up, and every reason to cut back further until demand starts dropping off.

Until recently I thought it won’t last, and that eventually they would have to improve to keep people coming back - but this has been going on for years, and people come in their thousands to the hotels.

As long as there are enough people rich or stupid enough to pay these ridiculous prices for crap products, they will keep going as they are.

The customers who are not prepared to pay those prices will still visit for the day and spend money on tickets, food, fastrack etc. So they can’t lose really.

Personally I ditched the MAP years ago and now only visit for the day once or twice a year max, avoiding the hotels which used to be great but are now tourist traps. It’s helped me to still enjoy the park for what it is.

 

[Kraken27]

That's possibly the case but again that just boils down to apathy and not caring enough.

Earlier up the thread @Kraken27 mentioned how he saw Roland Mack eating in the resort's restaurant. Maybe the senior Merlin management teams should start experiencing their product how their customers do too.

In IT we call it dog-fooding.

An interesting point. At a previous employer, we had 5 business units in the UK, of which IT was one & was the central IT provider. The "Senior Bigwigs & their PA's" in the 4 non IT units claimed the IT service was crap & insisted on a dedicated phone number they could call, with nano-second answering time SLA's etc.

The IT business unit director refused to allow ANY of his staff access to this "premium service". They had to use the normal customer service number. The customer satisfaction scores were way higher on the IT business unit senior staff. They got through to someone who was not purely focussed on picking up the phone in under 10secs, but could fix 90% of the issues there and then.