Robert Cook accepted The Scottish Hotelier of the Year 2006 award on February 25th from Patricia Ferguson MSP, Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport, at the 4th annual Scottish Hotels of the Year Awards
The driven and passionate hotelier Robert Cook is the CEO of not one but two boutique hotel chains – Malmaison and Hotel du Vin, both of which are expanding in Scotland; the famous One Devonshire Gardens hotel in Glasgow having only recently become a deluxe Hotel du Vin. Robert is also an investor in the Alternative Hotel Group, a joint venture between MWB directors and the Bank of Scotland which owns both Verve Venues and De Vere Group. So, an influential man.
He was born into a hotel-keeping family and spent his first 18 years living-in at an Aberdeenshire hotel. After taking a trainee programme with Holiday Inns he served as F&B manager at The Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh. Between 1992 and 1995 he was manager of the Forum InterContinental hotel in Glasgow... which became the Crowne Plaza last year and indeed which successfully hosted the 2007 Scottish hotel awards.
In 1997 our reigning Scottish Hotelier of the Year joined the Malmaison group as opening general manager for the Newcastle Mal and became regional operations director for the brand. From 2000 he worked with Malmaison founder Ken McCulloch on the Columbus hotel in Monte Carlo and became managing director for McCulloch’s Columbus and Dakota hotel group in the UK.
He rejoined Malmaison in January 2004 and oversaw the acquisition of Hotel du Vin in October 2004. Since then, we at HotelReviewScotland.com have not been the only prominent hotel guide to recognise what we have termed the "return to form" of Malmaison; his return to the group got the vision back to where it should have stayed and as a result the hotels are doing extremely well and continue to offer original thinking such as free wireless internet access, sexy design and very local produce-based menus.
Cook’s success won him the Manager of the Year 'Catey' in 2006.
The judges commended his passion, his hands-on approach and his attention to service while still maintaining profit growth - the two brands boosted pre-tax profits by 77% to £2.3m in the second half of 2006 on turnover up 15% to £36m.
We congratulate him on his award as Scotland's Hotelier of the Year 2007 and thank the former Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport for making the presentation towards the end of this year's exciting Scottish Hotels of the Year Awards Night Party.
With thanks to Caterer for additional notes.
