Reputation and capability
The Dorchester Collection is the successor to the Dorchester Group, originally established by the Brunei Investment Agency in 1996 to manage its collection of hotels in Europe and the USA.
The launch of the Dorchester Collection in 2006 signalled a change to the strategic goals of the company. By applying its unrivalled experience and capability in owning and operating some of the world’s great individual hotels, the Dorchester Collection will be looking to acquire as well as manage further wholly-owned and part-owned hotels, and to enter into management contracts for luxury city and resort hotels.
Backing the strategy is a strong company branding that expresses the market’s universally high regard for the current portfolio and the distinctive common values held by all Dorchester Collection hotels.
Renovation and modernisation
The Dorchester Collection has accumulated great expertise in the highly successful modernisation projects undertaken for its hotels. The Dorchester, The Beverly Hills Hotel and Le Meurice were all closed for comprehensive two-year renovation programmes. Further refurbishment of rooms and suites then public areas has been carried out at The Dorchester. The Hotel Principe di Savoia is also being sensitively refurbished and there has been extensive upgrading of the Hotel Plaza Athénée.
Renovations are always carried out with the understanding that the original character of the properties is a great part of their appeal. The design of rooms retains their traditional distinction while introducing the most modern and technology to increase the convenience and range of services for guests. New technology is also introduced to serve both the productivity and efficiency of management and staff.
Global sales and marketing
The size of the Dorchester Collection allows it to be agile and responsive to the individual requirements of each hotel while commanding a large base of loyal guests and a robust distribution infrastructure via the GDS and internet.
Global sales and marketing support is centred on more than 50 sales managers in the hotels themselves, supplemented by sales offices in North America, Japan, the UK and Russia. The world-wide public relations structure is based on a team of in-house managers with separate PR offices in the UK, North America, Russia, Brazil and Japan. These assets allow effective regional and worldwide programmes to be integrated with the individual hotel activities.
Distribution and revenue management
All the hotels benefit from the Dorchester Collection having its own Global Distribution Systems (GDS) code. We have voice offices in Singapore, Miami and Frankfurt with toll-free lines from countries such as Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Each hotel benefits from strong training in revenue and yield management, with appropriate systems in place to control pricing and inventory.
Management and operations
The strategic aims of management are to develop the existing hotel brands, infrastructure and teams, while unlocking the potential for the Dorchester Collection to represent an enlarged portfolio of deluxe hotels. The philosophy is to ensure that, each hotel has the best and most talented front-line team. These are led by the General Managers each of whom is among the small world elite of outstanding hoteliers.
While the General Managers instil and support the individual character, appeal and services of their hotels, they are given the effective and wide ranging support of the centre. This includes revenue management, management incentive schemes, systems quality assurance programmes, systems installation and training, and the development of food and beverage partnerships.
Staff and training
The values of the Dorchester Collection are embodied and delivered by the staff of each hotel. Our people are selected and trained to understand their collective responsibility towards guests as well as their own particular skill.
Each hotel is responsible for ensuring that staff are motivated to anticipate the needs of guests. Dorchester Collection endorses and encourages transfers between hotels and backs their training and career development policies and services.
