In our latest edition of Getting to Know You, Simon Bachelor – Regional Vice President of Operations at Interstate Hotels & Resorts UK – gives us an insight into his role.

Hi Simon, tell us about your role with Interstate?

I started my role as Regional Vice President of Operations at the end of 2018, after working within the finance function of Interstate for four years within the same region.

The role gives me overall responsibility for the leadership of 19 Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) hotels – all with a single owner – driving customer satisfaction, revenue growth, profit improvement, brand collaboration, health and safety, and people and recruitment.

Additionally, I work closely with our owner’s representative to ensure everything comes together to drive the overall performance of the portfolio of hotels.

What does a typical day in your role involve?

If there is a typical day, I’ve not seen one yet! It’s hard to think of two days that have been the same since I’ve been in the role.

Coming from a finance background my passion is driving performance – be that in people, sales or profit – and finding ways to deliver better performance to our ownership keeps me focused on all commercial opportunities.

My time is typically split between the commercial side of the business and the service we provide to our guests. Of course, ensuring our hotels are safe places for our people and our guests is also at the top of my agenda.

The review of our guest satisfaction metrics is also high on the list – making sure our guests and group clients have a great stay means they return, and that loyalty makes us more profitable.  We also have regular sales, commercial and trading reviews to ensure that hotels are on track with their financial performance.

What’s your favourite part of your role?

I love working with the regional team and the hotel teams, they really are a great bunch of people and the support I have had from them all over the past four years and in particular, since starting my new role in the last few months has been fantastic.

Seeing the development of individuals also gives me great pleasure. How they step up to the mark when given responsibility gives you an enormous sense of wellbeing. A real vindication of your faith in them.

What, in your opinion, makes Interstate stand out from the crowd?

The work ethic of the people in this company is quite remarkable, the lengths the teams will go to for their owners is really incredible.

Working at Interstate never feels like a chore because there is a real sense of fun in the workplace and this for me inspires our people to go the extra mile for us and ultimately our owners, too.