Interview with Patrik Roosenboom GM of the Radisson Blu Hotel Spa Balmoral
Olivier Wauters, Executive Director of Eventonline, had a chat with Patrik Roosenboom, the new General Manager of Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel in Spa-Balmoral.
Born and raised in Brussels and an alumnus of Erasmushogeschool, Patrik Roosenboom already boasts a nice track record in hotel management. “After graduating in hotel management, I got hired by Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Brussels. For two years, I worked the night shift at the reception desk.” Then Patrik left the ‘graveyard shift’ to become a shift leader at the Radisson Blu @ Disneyland Resort Paris, but no less than one year later, his career took another turn and he returned to the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Brussels to work on reservations and revenue management, a function he fulfilled for two years. “This job provided me the financial basis for my current position as GM,” says Patrik. In 2009 he becomes front office manager in charge of revenue management at Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel in Spa-Balmoral. “The motivation to work for a smaller hotel was triggered by the opportunity to move up within the hotel group but also the promotion to another function for which I had a double background. Both my experiences in front office management and revenue management came in handy.” After a few years Patrik became the meeting & events manager of the hotel. “I took up that function for two years and then switched to the newly created function of front of house manager in charge of the front office, revenue management, IT, project management (coordinating renovation projects within the hotel) and security. And today, since 1 March, 2017 to be exact, I am the new general manager of Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel Spa.”
Being a GM requires the necessary ‘people skills’. “The advantage I have now is that as a GM I can lend a helping hand where it is needed. You can demand a lot of your staff, but you have to be reasonable regarding workload,” Patrik says. “There can be some pressure, or a lot sometimes, but the job must be manageable. The hotel business remains a people’s business. If you don’t respect your staff, they won’t respect you either.”
The new GM therefore sees ‘team work’ as a high priority. “We’re constantly on the move. After all, the world keeps on turning. If you break your team, you’re on your own. Besides, I’m not writing the success story by myself, but together with the people who surround me, my loyal team. And every member of that team is in daily contact with our customers, so it’s important to realize this. Throughout my career I learned how essential it is to have experienced all the different aspects of the hotel industry. This opens your eyes and obliges you to reflect and think differently about certain things. Someone who is dropped in a management function without much practical knowledge will not notice this.”
The big difference between the Radisson Blu Royal Brussels and the Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel Spa-Balmoral lies in the fact that in a smaller hotel the home-away-from-home feel is much more present. “The Radisson Blu Balmoral, commonly known as ‘The Balmoral’ is much more homely in terms of experience. The main aspect for me here in this hotel is to be able to work with the exchange of a feeling. This is a cozy hotel, in the Royal on the other hand, with its high ceilings; you have that overwhelming sense of ‘grandeur’, from staying at a top hotel in a cosmopolitan city. While in the Balmoral you have a totally different sensation. If you stay here as an individual guest, you come here to celebrate, a weekend away without the children, a wedding anniversary, a wellness weekend, etc. These are the types of events and stays we have here. That’s the difference between these two hotels.”
The smaller the structure, the greater the connection with the staff. “It just takes a different approach,” Patrik Roosenboom says. “In a larger structure, the budgets are also slightly different and there are completely different considerations. A GM in a smaller venue has other concerns on his mind than in a larger one.”
A new GM also means new ideas. “My plan for this hotel in a first phase is to return to basics, starting with the details,” says Patrik. “Waiting hours at the bar, for example, because staff need to multitask. With simple solutions, I have to make sure that we can fix this.”
However, one of the major challenges for the new GM is to revive the historic reputation of the hotel in its current context. “How do you bring back tradition into a hotel dating back to 1905, a building that is constantly in need of renovation? How can I make sure that the building reflects this tradition, both on the outside and the inside, and how do I ensure that the Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel Spa-Balmoral, the very first hotel in Spa by the way, keeps its strong position on the market? This can only be achieved by pulling the basics back in. Once the foundation is there, the rest will follow. We continue to perform small renovations without too much nuisance for the guests. For example, we are currently renovating rooms in a historic wing, updating and upgrading the equipment. How can we win customer satisfaction and how can we make it better today in comparison with yesterday. Recognizing certain things, what are we doing well and what needs to be improved? That’s important,” the GM says.
Radisson Blu Balmoral Hotel Spa-Balmoral also has interesting B2B offers. “We have a nice proposal for companies that want to organize seminars or other events in our hotel,” Patrik Roosenboom explains. “We call it ‘Make it your hotel’. In other words, if there are sufficient participants in the corporate event, the company can rent the entire hotel. This is a nice concept and allows us to dedicate the full attention of our hotel staff to the company’s guests. That’s what we like to do because then we can make sure that the customer has had a truly memorable stay.”
View this customer also on Eventonline:
http://www.eventonline.be/en/detail/event-venue-in-spa-radisson-blu-balmoral-hotel-spa/