Art’otel: a new face on the block

What inspired the art’otel brand to debut in the UK? As a real estate and hospitality company, the PPHE Hotel Group is always looking at growth opportunities, and having had significant success in the UK already with the Park Plaza brand, we saw an opportunity to bring a new premium lifestyle brand to the UK, targeting a different audience. The UK, and London in particular, has always had a diverse and thriving art scene, so it was a natural fit to embrace this with our art’otel brand. Art’otel London Battersea Power Station will debut with art’otel London Hoxton which is currently under construction and expected to open in 2024. What attracted you to the art’otel? Everything about it! Not only being able to steer the opening of the UK’s flagship art’otel, but opening the only hotel within the ground-breaking new Battersea Power Station neighbourhood is an incredibly exciting opportunity. As a brand, art’otel has something different to offer than the norm, including working with signature artists such as Jaime Hayon, and incredible talents like Henrique Sá Pessoa who will be bringing our destination restaurant and bar, JOIA Battersea to life. What does your day-to-day overseeing of the brand's UK debut look like? My role is split into two parts - first is pre-opening, which involves getting the hotel ready to open, from construction and fit-out, all the way through to guest experience, operations, recruitment, sales and marketing. Alongside that, my focus also has to be on the opening and first year performance, so it really is incredibly diverse and no day looks the same. Fortunately, I have a fantastic team around me, who I work with across all areas in order to deliver this unbelievably exciting project. What do you hope to achieve in your new role? As general manager of art’otel London Battersea Power Station, the main achievement will be getting the hotel open after many years of planning, development and construction. But alongside that, is creating a team from scratch, building them up to deliver an outstanding guest experience so that the hotel becomes the hotel of choice. Seeing it thrive, and of course deliver and exceed on targets will be a great achievement. How will art’otel London Battersea Power Station operate under your leadership? I believe in an inclusive approach to leadership, involving the team in decision-making, empowering them to deliver on their goals, and ultimately providing a market-leading guest experience. At the core of the brand is art, across all streams, and therefore the hotel should be a hive of creativity, at all levels, no matter the function, back of house, front of house etc. It’s more about the freedom to be creative and bring new ideas to the table, constantly evolving to the market and the guests' needs. I am there to encourage, nurture and deliver this. What does your innovative approach to guest services entail? We are constantly looking at how we evolve and progress our guest experience, and use a whole array of data, feedback and experience to develop new ways of doing things. Not for the sake of it, but to genuinely improve our guests’ experience when they stay with us, as well as the pre and post stay experience. Our recent focus has been on evolving and enhancing the art’otel digital services app, providing our guests with choice on what and when they want to interact with us, make bookings, chat to us, as well as integrating with partners. The key with art’otel is empowering our team to deliver outstanding levels of service and not being constrained in any way. We can’t wait to share more details with you when we open. What will the first year of the hotel’s opening look like? The first year of opening will very much focus on positioning ourselves within the market, establishing ourselves as the go-to hotel, restaurant, bar and event venue. The team will all have the same goals to work towards, and we’re really excited to see the hotel open so we can get going!