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The Greenway Hotel and Spa, a four red star boutique hotel in Gloucestershire, has appointed Luke Millikin as its new general manager.
Millikin will lead a 60-strong team off the back of a recent £1.4 refurbishment programme of the venue’s 21 bedrooms and communal spaces.
With more than 24 years of hospitality industry experience across the UK, he has worked his way up from bartender and kitchen porter roles to general manager, including at The Painswick where under his leadership the hotel was named by The Sunday Times as their ‘Ultimate Hotel of the Year’ in 2016.
His career in hospitality was inspired by time spent in hotels for two years in Doha in the late 1980s where his father worked as an engineer, and nearly 35 years on, Millikin said he is hoping to instil a similar love and passion he has for hotels in the next generation.
He said: “I spent a lot of afternoons in hotels and resorts when I was living in Doha as the heat meant that we had to finish school at midday – and it was here that I really fell in love with the industry. Even at seven years old I wasn’t one for sunbathing or swimming, and instead I used to pester the staff to find out what they were doing.
“One day I remember seeing some of them making a floor-to-ceiling croque-en-bouche which looked like a huge Christmas tree made out of profiteroles and flowers, and I just remember thinking ‘wow, this is ridiculous’ as I had never experienced anything like it before.”
He added: “Getting young people – particularly 16- to 24-year-olds – interested in our industry coupled with developing them to a certain standard is the biggest challenge for ourselves and the industry. It is also the biggest opportunity – as we can really rescue some individuals from a path of uncertainty and show what a career in high-end hospitality looks like.
“I fell in love with the industry by sampling it first-hand, and if we can get more young people through the doors on day tours for example, then this is an important first step.The Greenway is exactly the type of luxury property that has the potential to inspire so many careers where people can take a look at what is the right fit for them – whether that is working in our busy 3 AA rosette fine dining restaurant or kitchen, through to event management to support our flexible meetings and events spaces, pursuing a career in our Elan Spa, or even working in maintenance and gardening.”
The Greenway Hotel and Spa is a 16th Century manor house hotel set in eight acres of countryside grounds off Shurdington Road, and was named as one of the UK’s top ten country house hotels by The Times’ guide to the 100 best places to stay in the UK for 2024.
