BEACH BOYS, GROUP TOURS & LOBSTERS – Part 26-By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

Source:Island

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

Some Challenges on the Beach

As the Executive Chef of the Coral Gardens Hotel, I laid a strong foundation for my work in the new environment by learning about the union, the history of the hotel and the work culture of the kitchen. I changed my management style slightly to suit the team of 50 mature employees in my departments. I experienced positive outcomes with the team due to that adjustment. I also enjoyed positive reactions from the customers about the ‘new-look’ products and services. These were encouraging signs, but my optimism was short lived when we experienced a series of hostile encounters on the beach in front of the hotel.

It commenced when a security guard tried to chase away some beach vendors who harassed the hotel guests sun bathing on the beach. The beach vendors had been selling corals. Later when one of the hotel gardeners asked a local fisherman not to keep his fishing boat right in front of the hotel, I heard a loud argument. “Your rich hotel does not own the public beach! My family used this spot on the beach to keep our fishing boat for generations! If you touch my boat, you will not be allowed to come out of the hotel, alive!” the fisherman yelled. The Manager of the hotel, Muna requested the staff to avoid any further confrontations with the locals.

I considered such disagreements as an indication of deeply hostile attitudes of the locals toward the hotels. One day, a well-known local deep-sea diver, drew a pistol and shot the bullseye of the dart board hung in the public bar. I then felt that the situation with the locals was like a time bomb. There were also objections from the locals about the hotel using the public beach for weekly barbecue buffets. Reluctantly, I had to back off and re-locate the barbecue near the beach but, within the boundaries of the hotel. I was disappointed, but learning from this challenge, decided to do some research about the culture of the locals living in the town of Hikkaduwa and nearby villages. Muna and I consulted the local businessmen – Lesley and Dudley, whom we befriended before we took over the management of the Coral Gardens Hotel.

Two Worlds Separated by a Wall

Having spent the first two decades of my life in Colombo, I had to make an effort to learn the culture of Hikkaduwa area. It was small, but a vibrant town in many aspects. It was important for me to understand the attitudes and aspirations, behaviour patterns and belief systems, customs and cultures (ABC) of the local residents. In general, the area was poor and the economy was largely dependent on the co-operative fishing industry owned and operated by small-time local businessmen.

I realised that compared to the locals who were making a living from agriculture, fishermen communities were more aggressive in their nature. Some younger members of the local population attempted to make a living by selling local handicrafts, corals and other items to tourists. They also rented diving equipment to the tourists. The hoteliers called them “beach boys” or “touts”. In the mid-1970s, unlike Bentota, Hikkaduwa attracted many low-budget travellers and hippies, who were served well by these local beach boys, and smaller guest houses.

Showing some respect to the locals, being flexible and having an open dialogue appeared to be wise decisions by Muna. However, I felt that being firm and fair would be an even better approach in dealing with hostile locals as well as the union. I noticed that some people took kindness for a weakness. Muna was not keen on walking outside the hotel. However, on some evenings after dinner service, I used to walk to nearby hotels to meet friends and play cards. I used to walk back to Coral Gardens Hotel during early hours of the morning. During my walks I usually spoke briefly with local vendors and touts. That provided me some understanding of their attitude and mentality.

A string of small tourist hotels mushroomed in Hikkaduwa following the success of Coral Gardens Hotel which set the standards for others to follow. The key common element of these hotels were the names, which all had the word – ‘Coral’ (Blue Corals, Coral Reef, Coral Sands, Coral Rock, Super Corals etc.). These hotels were predominantly owned by rich business people from Colombo. In general, the poor villagers viewed hotels as rich establishments providing luxury products and services to tourists while making lots of profit, without providing any direct or indirect benefits to the locals. A couple of these hotels hired retired army officers to manage hotels. They were considered tough administrators, who maintained connections with the top brass of the army.

Coral Gardens Hotel provided security to its guests with tall walls and gated entrances controlled by uniformed security guards (mainly ex-military men) provided by an agency from Colombo. In general, villagers were not allowed in the hotel. The only exception was the public bar, which had a separate entrance from the car park. As management, our key responsibility was to provide services to our guests in a safe environment. In later years, during my work as a hotelier in other parts of Sri Lanka as well as in other developing countries such as Iraq, Guyana and Jamaica, I always felt that the wider the economic gap between the luxury hotels and the local communities and economy, the higher the tensions were.

The Most Experienced Sommelier

In addition to the union leader Edmond, there were two other Butlers at the hotel. They supervised the restaurant employees during breakfast, lunch and dinner service. The oldest of them, Butler Raman, had gained over 25 years of experience as a Wine Waiter and Sommelier at the famous Galle Face Hotel, prior to joining Coral Gardens Hotel, 10 years earlier. He was reputed in Sri Lanka as the person who had opened the greatest number of bottles of wine during his long career. I learnt from his knowledge of wines.

Butler Raman was a cheerful man. He was loyal to the hotel and respected the management, unlike some of his peers. He was happy when I commenced a restaurant employee briefing prior to each lunch and dinner service. He loved my detailed explanations about the preparations of dishes and how the dishes had been named, particularly the new items I introduced to the menus. He took notes during all my briefings. We developed a mutual respect for each other. Raman was very open to my new and creative ideas. He respectfully addressed me, ‘Master’ and I addressed him, ‘Butler Raman’.

Raman’s customer relations were excellent. He had a good memory and addressed repeat customers by name. All tourists who returned every year or sometimes a couple of times in each tourist season, all knew Raman by name. He quickly became my right-hand man in the restaurant. Often both of us stayed by the entrance to the hotel reception area to greet tourist groups arriving at the hotel.

Categorising Lunch Groups

When the hotel was full, we had only around 100 resident guests for lunch and dinner. On most days, we catered for an additional 150 to 200 tourists who visited Coral Gardens Hotel only for lunch. These ‘lunch only groups’ were on one-week long tours of the island. Coral Gardens Hotel was their first stop and they arrived towards late morning or around noon. After they did the glass-bottom boat excursions to see the underwater Coral Gardens and a quick dip in the sea, they used the large changing rooms with showers and lockers. Then they came to the restaurant for a quick lunch. Speed of service was very important as the European tour leaders in charge of these groups had to manage the time efficiently.

In consultation with the tour leaders, I planned standard three-course lunch menus that can be prepared and served quickly. These menus changed slightly depending on the fresh catch of the day from the sea. Obviously, the restaurant staff provided better service to high spending tour groups who tipped generously. After the welcome, Raman quickly categorised the tour groups into the following four:

a) Wine Party – a group that ordered wine and tipped well. The best tables were allocated.

b) Beer Party – a group that ordered only beer and tipped a little.

c) Soda Party – a group that ordered only soft drinks and pop and hardly ever tipped.

d) Choo Party – a group that did not order any beverages or tipped, but stopped to use the washrooms only.

Selling Lobsters

A month after the tourist season in 1975/1976 commenced, I wanted to introduce a lobster night similar to that Bentota Beach Hotel offered weekly. As most guests were on full-board packages, we charged extra to include a lobster dish on their dinner menu or upgrade the main course with lobster. I planned the additional lobster dishes and briefed Raman and motivated him to take lobster orders and sell wines to match the dishes. I gave him a free hand and he commenced lobster order taking for our first lobster night. The next day, when I checked how many lobsters that Raman had sold, I was disappointed to note that he managed to sell only six.

“That’s OK, Raman. I know that you tried your best”, I told Raman, as he was also disappointed to let me down. “Sorry, Master. As those guests who were satisfied with the lobster dishes you cooked this evening and talked with other guests, I think that we should be able to sell more, next week” Raman told me. I understood that word of mouth is a good form of sales, but I was eager to have some quick results. We agreed that next week, I should join Raman to sell lobsters, as a team of two. “Next week, shall we take lobster orders soon after breakfast?”, Raman asked me. “No, let’s sell when the tourists are hungry, say just before lunch, around noon” I decided on the timing strategy.

The next day just before 12 noon, on my way to meet Raman at the restaurant, I dropped in at the stores. The divers from Ambalangoda were delivering freshly caught live lobster to the stores. “Sukumaran, give me that king lobster”, I told the storekeeper. Carrying that large lobster, I accompanied Raman and went near the beach where most of our guests were sun bathing. As someone in a chef uniform including a white hat carrying a lobster was uncommon, I attracted some attention of the guests immediately. A few guests surrounded me and one guest asked me, “Is that lobster live?” “Henny, you may touch one of its eyes”, I gently prompted. The lobster moved in an aggressive manner when Henny did so. She screamed and all the guests on the beach came to check the commotion.

I knew at once that we had created some interest and now, I had a interested audience. I wanted to strike quickly to take lobster orders for dinner. Raman carried two empty Coca Cola crates from the resident bar, and told me, “Master, stand on these crates so that everybody can see you and the king lobster.” I did the sales talk and Raman wrote down the room numbers and orders. It was perfect team work. When I explained how I prepare our favourite lobster dishes I noticed some guests looking hungrier and clearly indicating their desire to order the most expensive item on our à la cart menu. When I mentioned the price, that became an obstacle for closing the sale. Some guests said that was too expensive for them. I quickly thought of a few problem-solving deals.

Later, privately I told a couple, “Mary and George, I know that these dishes are expensive, but do you want to return to France without tasting a single lobster dish in Sri Lanka?” As they were still not convinced, I then said, “I have a solution for you. I will serve one lobster dish for both of you to share, but served on two large plates, filled with some extra assortment of salads. Two plates for the price of one!” “That sounds great, count us in”, Mary said, even without noticing her husband’s nod of approval. With that confirmation Raman and I reached a record-breaking 50 lobster orders for that evening. We had to buy a few extra lobsters from neighbourhood hotels to meet the demand.

Our lobster nights proved to be popular and successful for the rest of the tourist season. Over the months, we enhanced the promotional tactics. This included taking the lobster orders the previous evening just before dinner. We set up a large sea water tank in the lobby with live lobsters and a colourful poster. At times I did some ‘free’ lobster tasting sessions. I also arranged for the Receptionists at the front office to talk about our lobster promotion to every new guest at the time of their arrival. Due to 10% service charge on bills, which were equally distributed to all full-time employees, I was able get the support of the employees working in different front of the house departments (waiters, barmen, receptionists, cashiers, room boys), for lobster promotion.

AIDA

A few years later, when I had my first course in Marketing at the University of Colombo, some of the best Sales and Marketing experts from Lever Brothers (who were guest lecturers) introduced a concept called AIDA to the business administration students. In explaining this concept, my first Marketing Lecturer and then Chairman of Lever Brothers Sri Lanka, Mr. Stanley Jayawardena told my class that AIDA is the best way to describe the customer journey throughout an effective sales process. Without any formal education in Marketing or sales training, in 1975, at Coral Gardens Hotel I had followed exactly the four stages of the AIDA concept:

Attention

– attract the customer’s attention – timing, location and the chef uniform.

Interest

– generate interest in the product or services – commotion with the live king lobster.

Desire

– transition from interest to actively ‘wanting’ the product – dish explanation.

Action

– spark / convince the customers to take action / close the sale – 50 lobster orders.

Since then, I have been a firm believer of AIDA. Not only in selling, but also in advertising campaigns I designed, seminars I presented and keynote speeches I delivered. I used AIDA for them all.