INTERVIEW He also has an idea up his sleeve to get chefs/proprietors together. He says, “I’ve called it ‘Chefs eat Mhor’. I’d like to see folk in the industry meeting regularly. A lot of owner-operated businesses because they are short-staffed are on the front line. When we do get in a room together early on, we share lots, and then it becomes a boozy night! If we meet more regularly, at each other’s venues, and here - I will bring chefs in to cook, I think we could all be a support to each other. I’m still fleshing out the idea but I think it could be great not just for us but for local suppliers too.” And talking of suppliers Tom is very grateful for the support he got from his suppliers when the pandemic kicked off. “I have worked with some of my suppliers for 20 years. We have grown up together and it was these people who when I needed it gave me credit. Those are the kind of people you want to deal with, there are a lot of companies in Scotland like that – we are a small village - all those people who in the first couple of weeks gave me credit know that I will deal with them for the rest of my life. It was just as bad for them. Suppliers are important, without them we are nothing.” However, he is hoping that going forward he can persuade them to start taking back their packaging. Although Tom and Lisa May don’t shout about their green ethos, they do embrace a more sustainable way of operating. Says Tom, “Some of it is a necessity. The reality is we do a lot because our margins are so tight. We recycle, we use LED bulbs, we have our bees and Lisa May has the garden which supplies vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, and fruit to the hotel. We turn the heating down too, however, for guests, one of the privileges of staying in a hotel is that you can open a window and have the heating on. He adds, “I do think that suppliers should take back their packaging. It can be done. I also think that it should not be up to the Council to uplift bins. Hospitality pays for the uplift of waste and I think everyone should too. If we want to make environmental changes it has to start at home. As consumers we are responsible for taking care of our rubbish, it should not be the responsibility of the local council, that is not their area of expertise.” When we spoke Tom was just getting ready for a special Champagne and Oyster Extravaganza. I asked him what else he has planned. He laughs. “It is difficult planning. I am re-structuring my debt at the moment and the bank asked for a business plan based on the last two years … how can anyone do that?” He laughs again, “You know I always had planned to be debt-free by my mid-50s. That is not going to happen – and now I think why did I think that would be a good thing? I was brought up in a family that had the mantra when you could afford something buy it. That’s a myth. So I am now restructuring my debt which will take some pressure off. “I can’t really plan for summer because I don’t know what the market will do – if we get enough people we still have plans to extend, but we have to make some money first. But I do feel more confident going forward now, got my ducks in a row, maybe I am older and wiser. I can certainly see the opportunities – particularly when we start to see international guests gain. “Lisa May and I are lucky we like our jobs but I would like to have 20 • HOTELSCOTLAND
more choices over the next couple of years. I have also realised by going through the information for the bank that we also have a really good business, and I don’t think I have ever really realised that.
“I would never have thought about selling if it hadn’t been for the last two years, but now I would, but obviously it would have to be the right deal. I used to be romantic and wanted to create something I could hand on. But we don’t have kids, and we are all living longer and healthier and I have to be more realistic. Lisa May and I are happy, although she would like to work in the garden full-time.” But that is a plan for the future, right now Tom and his team are hoping for a busy season. He has put in more than a dozen caravans to accommodate staff, and there are plans afoot to landscape the front of Mhor84, and also get a new educational space up and running. Explains Tom, “I always had a problem with regular education and when I started many people in hospitality were very good to me, from Stuart Spence who founded the Marcliffe in Aberdeen to Robin Buchanan-Smith at Eriska, so now I want to put something back and I can do that with a new classroom we have built. It is a nice environment for people to learn here. It will be all-inclusive – education for everyone.” One person Tom has learned from is hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray. His hospitality crush.He laughs again, “I met him when we were both speaking at an event – he was the pre-speaker and I was the after-dinner speaker. He is a world-class operator and to have him in Scotland is amazing. He is so knowledgeable and he didn’t miss when he was doing his talk, he was quite hard on them. I thought ‘I love him’.’ He made it easy for me because all I had to do was make them laugh. He did One Aldwych in London, and it was London’s first ‘all white decorated hotel that I ever saw. It felt so Parisian.” Tom tells me that he doesn’t know what his job title is now and that he spends more time than ever in the office, but he is determined to keep the business evolving. I have put some of my team on some of the amazing HIT courses, and I am determined to work on our training – hospitality is all about good service. You may have the best meal of your life but if the service is lousy that’s what you remember. “I find it quite interesting looking at the young people coming through. All the stuff my age group was caught up in, matters not a jot to them. We became lifestyle hoteliers, our friends would come and stay and we thought we would make a fortune and some, when they didn’t, became a bit bitter. Today’s young hoteliers have no qualms about opening, for instance, only four days a week, they have half the staff and do more themselves and best of all they make money. Tom says he aims to keep pushing himself and to be open-minded. I asked him what was there anything he would take away from the pandemic? He concluded, “Keep a little bit of myself for myself. I didn’t put a value on anything I did. I thought because I could do it everyone could do it. But I am beginning to realise the value of what we do and I have come back invigorated. But best of all I have Lisa May by my side.” It is a good life!
