Innovate or Die... The Schindlerhof Mantra

At the recent TourismNET/Failte Ireland National Tourism Networking Conference a couple of things really stood out. First was Klaus Kobjoll of the Schindlerhof Hotel, and second was how in this business you live or die on your service levels - no matter how gorgeous your surroundings and how many stars you acquire.

Klaus Kobjoll may well already be familiar to you - he's such an expert speaker that I'm sure you may have encountered him on one of the Fáilte Ireland master classes. Klaus is, according to himself, driven to succeed by his background. Son of a poor immigrant, he hauled himself up by his bootstraps (as it were) to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs around. Depending, of course, on how you define successfull. Success as an entrepreneur to me is someone who has built a company and product of which they are enormously proud - as well as fond. And one which is profitable, happy, constantly innovating and which obviously provides the entrepreneur with positive life force to go on innovating.

The Schindlerhof Hotel is full of little innovations across all disciplines: from their rooms (the Mini Coupe for example, where everything is round and imagine if you will the mini-bar!) to the Japanese garden (for which both Kobjoll and his wife went to Japan to study Feng Shui) to the forthcoming wine cellar (you need to find where Herr Kobjoll is speaking next to find out all about that one!) to the Ideas Cards that each team member is required to submit every month - no idea, no bonus, no pay rise, no glory. Schindlerhof has won countless awards and regularly features high in the best place to work in Germany. Kobjoll claims to be able to take two one month periods of vacation every year (bliss!) and further reccommends that every entrepreneur do so.

It was a fascinating presentation, everybody laughed along with him, heard his very wise words and took a lot away from this open and imaginative attitude to quality and innovation. One of the questions he was asked during the Q&A was what he thought the Irish hospitality industry needed to do to keep its edge. His reply was essentially to keep the Irish employed in it - that visitors to Ireland want to see the freckle faced red haired Irish Cailin. hmmm... That one, I'm not entirely sure about. What I am sure about is that a venue lives or dies on its service levels, and no matter how pretty the venue or how fancy pants the rooms if the service level is not 6 star, nobody's coming back.

The Lyrath is gorgeous, no two ways about it. The bathrooms full of beautiful textured ultra modern wallpapers, artwork and wood panelling. Oh so cool looking toilet bowls that you need to be a midget to feel comfy on... and motion operated taps. The individual hand towels lasted until about lunchtime and then weren't replenished. But the experience that I'll take away from it was the lunch. Started wonderfully, elegant looking waiters opened our napkins onto our knees with professional flourish. Fascinating sounding food on wonderfully elegant menus on the tables, with extraordinarily descriptive passages describing each course. Butter in the middle of the table promised warm and crusty bread rolls or perhaps even local Kilkenny breads.

So we waited, and waited and waited. No bread ever materialised, ah well, I'm low carbing anyhow. Eventually, the starters arrived - melon with a half a strawberry and a few raspberries coated in some form of yoghurt. Then eventually, the starter plates were cleared and eventually - more than 45 minutes after we sat down, 7 out of our table of 10 had received their main courses. Main courses were accompanied by two teeny bowls of potatoes and two more of green beans placed in the centre of the table, and the chicken arrived covered in baked beans. Yes, you read correctly, baked beans, in some form of tomato sauce. Probably a slightly more upmarket sauce than Heinz, but certainly v similar. After another 10 minutes, the rest of the table received their meals, and another set of potatoes and green beans arrived. After another 10 minutes, yet another set of potatoes and green beans arrived and sat there as everybody had finished. I had 4 separate armpits in my nose during "service" - all relatively fresh, I have to admit - but no excuse me, ma'am (OK, so I can dream). I positively snorted when the waiter removed the dinner plate of the person sitting next to me without so much as a by your leave as she was juuuust about to pick a little more... ouch.

The whole lunch was a fiasco from the point of view of keeping to any sort of timeline. My heart went out to the TourismNET and Failte Ireland teams who were doing such an excellent job of keeping within schedule. They simply didn't have a chance with the shambles that was the Lyrath's version of conference catering. If anyone has had a different experience there, I'd love to hear it, as based on my own, I would not be back.