Hospitality: Top 10 Fun Facts
So, here we are. Lockdown and set of restrictions number …? I’m losing count to be honest. Hospitality is being hit particularly hard by this whole Covid malarky. Like, really really hard. Which makes life uncertain and stressful for us business owners and managers.
I still love hospitality. And I always will. I’m a passionate advocate for this awesome industry which should be taken much more seriously and considered a fantastic career option. But my goodness am I finding it hard to sustain my usual levels of enthusiasm as a grim 2020 merges into bleak 2021. I wade through then implement the updated legislation. I buy bottle after bottle of hand sanitiser and produce screeds of health and hygiene notices. Worrying that not enough customers are coming through the door… then aaaaarrrgghh! There are now too many people in the queue for our takeaway service and we need to keep everyone at a safe and legal distance.
Furlough… job support scheme… nah scrap that… flexible furlough.. back to full furlough. In other words – multiple head explosions. Every. Damn. Day.
So I’ve had to have a wee word with myself. Hospitality is serious business, of course. But it’s also filled with enjoyment. Eating great food is fun. Meeting friends for coffee and cake (remember those heady days?) is fun. Above all, I make sure to laugh and share good times with my staff, customers and suppliers. It’s therefore time to inject some fun back into my state of mind. So I started thinking about the cool stuff about hospitality, its long history and incredible culture.
Here are my top 10 fun facts:
Hospitality, like all the best occupations, is an ancient industry. It can be traced back to 15,000BC when the inhabitants of the Lascaux Caves in France started accommodating members of visiting tribes. I’ve always said that hospitality is innate!
Inns have long been places of rest for travellers and were prominent in Ancient Persia and across the Roman Empire. Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, established in 793AD, is recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest pub in the UK. And there are hundreds of inns across the country whose records go back to the 1600s.
Some of the world’s most remote restaurants are located on hilltops, underwater and unpopulated islands. My favourites include the Rock Restaurant in Zanzibar and the Huashan Teahouse on Mount Hua in China, which you hike up to via a perilous mountainside. Yikes!! Must make it all the more worthwhile when you finally get there!
After some extensive research and eye-watering numbers, I’ve discovered that the most expensive hotel is the Empathy Suite Sky Villa at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. Designed by Damien Hirst, it includes a whopping 835m2 of awe-inspiring space over two floors, a chauffeured car service, and $10,000 in credit to spend in the casino downstairs. It’s a snip at just $100,000 per night, but given the 2-night minimum, you’ll need to fork out $200,000 to check it out!
The majestic Château Frontenac Hotel in Quebec City is said to be the most photographed hotel in the world. This iconic masterpiece overlooking the St. Lawrence River has played host to an incredible number of famous faces and world leaders over the years and was declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981.
The Prix d’Ami in Amsterdam has more seats than any other coffee shop in the world – 500. That’s 10 times as many as my own artisan coffee shop in Milnathort. Customers can choose from the five smoking areas and enjoy as a cinema room and 36 flat screens throughout the building.
The weirdest listings on Air BnB include a potato hotel, an elephant and a flyer saucer. But I have my eye on this glorious 10-bedroom Tuscan Villa located in the centre of Italian wine country…
If you’re a lover of both coffee shops and travel, the price of a cup of coffee is lowest in Bulgaria, and highest in Denmark. The Finns drinks the most amount of coffee, whereas it’s still not always commonly available in tea crazy China.
While most people know that Chicken Tikka Masala was created in the UK (in my home town of Glasgow no less) rather than India, did you know that Swedish meatballs originated in Turkey, French croissants in Austria and German Sauerkraut in China? And who knew that the Portuguese are the geniuses behind Vindaloo?
Real hotels in famous films include Park Hyatt Tokyo, the five-star hotel at the centre of Sofia Coppola’s Oscar-winning “Lost in Translation”; Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke, Virginia which stars in the enduringly popular “Dirty Dancing” and Fontainebleau Miami Beach which features in “Goldfinger”. Some hotels are practically movie stars in their own right, such as Caesars Palace in Las Vegas which appears in “Rain Man”, “Iron Man”, “Dreamgirls” and “The Big Short”. However, my favourite has to be the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, a key character in “The Shining”. Absolute classic.
About the author
At Victus we always try to inject a bit of lighthearted humour and fun into every project, no matter how serious. So whether you’d like to reimagine your menu, you need support with staff training and development or you need any guidance at all with the running of your hospitality or catering business, please call us on 07732 454639 for an initial, informal chat.
