“There’s a big challenge turning a corporate hotel into a summertime vacation venue, especially when you have many family groups among your guests,” says David Connor, general manager of the 952-room Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth, Montreal, and regional vice president Eastern Canada for Accor.
Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth, which is owned by Ivanhoe Cambridge, recently finished a massive renovation that included turning one floor of bedrooms into a nicely profitable additional meetings floor, with unique spaces named, say, Ping (yes, it has a table-tennis table) and Swing (it has two ceiling-hung swings).
The new look means that the employee count is now 852, ready to cope with an updated 1958-vintage property that is, most of the year, business oriented. In all, 58% of clients come from elsewhere in Canada, especially the Toronto and Vancouver areas (the USA is second in the feeder stakes). Every year, however, summer starts, as if by clockwork, on 15 June, and runs through to 1 September.
“Of course sometimes we see our business guests returning, with their families,” Connor admitted. These regulars book in their accustomed way, often not revealing that this time they are accompanied. Their changed status is not then apparent until they arrive to check in.
During the summer there are on average, every night, 50 youngsters under 16 years of age in the hotel. The adults with them book suites or connecting rooms, and as every parent knows, kids might well make bedrooms a little untidy. Winter-long the hotel’s housekeeping team allocates 14 rooms per team member but in summer this number is brought down to 12 (“attendants currently work by themselves but we are launching a trial to see what would happen if they work in pairs,” shared Connor).
To cope with this extra demand, an additional 25 people are hired for housekeeping every summer, but interestingly no extra staff are needed to bring fresh laundry supplies.
There is minimal additional call for private dining. Extras are, however, required for the hotel’s all-day restaurant, Roselys, a French bistro that is named for the rose of England and the fleur de lys of France. “We take on one to two additional servers, and the same number of extra table assistants, and one temporary hostess as well as summer-only culinary staff. Kids are given coloring books and crayons to help the overall experience.” Some youngsters of course cannot be separated from devices, and fortunately the hotel can accommodate up to five devices per bedroom.
Year-round annual occupancy is 1.2 nights per booking, but this moves to 1.7 nights in summer. Since FRHI hotels have only recently been extended to Le Club Accor it is, says Connor, too early to assess how many 2019 summertime bookings, usually made by parents with input from kids, and possibly grandparents, are being made using points.
“At the moment 39% of our clients are members of Le Club Accor and I expect this to grow to 45%, and I am anticipating that about 10% of bookings for summer 2020 will be using points.”
Come the end of this month, family groups will in the main disappear and the hotel will revert to its usual mix of roughly 33% each, business, group and transient. These sectors will appreciate, just as family groups have for the past two months, the hotel’s new lobby-set artisanal food market. As has happened for years back, there are many selfies taken, by all ages, in front of an all-wall photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who famously held their Give Peace A Chance love-in in the hotel’s suite 1742 back in 1969.
Just like nature’s seasons, life continues. There is a second annual burst, but less significant, over the end of year festive season, but Connor and his team are already planning for the start of next summer, as of 15 June 2020.