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English butler leads China's latest revolution
By Jonathan Watts (The Guardian)
Updated: 2005-10-27 16:21
Chinese tourist chiefs and luxury hotel managers are reinterpreting the old
dictum, Serve the People, with help from an unusual source: an English butler.
Today, Robert Watson, the English manservant has been recruited by the
authorities to instruct local staff in the finer points of etiquette and
customer satisfaction in response to a boom in the five-star service industry.
Thanks to a surging economy, an influx of foreign professionals and a
government campaign to improve manners ahead of the Olympics in 2008, Beijing is
calling on outside expertise to lift the standards of its service sector.
Mr Watson served at a private home and the Lanesborough Hotel in London
before embarking on a jet-setting career as founder and director of the Guild of
Professional English Butlers.
With international salaries for top manservants as high as ￡90,000 a year,
his advice does not come cheap. The cost of his courses, which can cover
anything from traditional white-glove service to modern hotel management, range
from ￡2,000 to ￡6,000 a week.
In the past 10 years, he has arranged visits to top tailors and makers of
china, organised lectures by toastmasters and wine specialists and run training
programmes in Las Vegas, the Caribbean, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.
But his eyes are now on China, which he sees as a major area of expansion.
"This market could be huge. China is the destination now, and it will be for
years to come. Hotel work will spiral and so will the market for property
management. There are huge numbers of luxury apartments in Beijing but no one
with great skill to service them," he said.
Mr Watson was hired by Beijing Tourism Group, which operates state-owned
hotels and sightseeing facilities in the capital. He is also running a five-day
course for 20 staff of a private luxury development.
Towering over his students and cracking jokes, the bespectacled Englishman
with the salt-and-pepper beard comes across as more Basil Fawlty than Jeeves,
but Mr Watson says the modern global age requires something more than the stiff
formality of the traditional English butler.
"Throughout the world, the big market is new money; people who have bought
lots of luxury items but lack staff who know how to clean and use them properly.
They need experts who can do this and organise superb dinner parties with all
the right food and drinks," he said. "We need to educate wealthy Chinese about
the value of having a butler. It not only enhances their status, it means that
they have someone to organise their lives in the way they want."
Mr Watson's short visit to Beijing is a small part of the city's preparations
for an expected increase of high-rolling tourists and wealthy investors.
According to the World Tourism Organisation, China will be the world's leading
tourist destination by 2020, generating an income of more than 3.6 trillion yuan
(￡260bn).
The rising economic clout of China's new rich has also led to an explosion in
the number of luxury businesses, such as the new Pine Valley golf club near the
Great Wall, which features courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and a presidential
suite with a 24-hour butler service.
"All this is new to us. You have to understand that the concept of private
ownership is only 20 years old in China. Before that everything was owned by the
state or the collective," said Tony Azarias, general manager of L'Accueil
Resident, a luxury property-management company that has also hired Mr Watson to
train staff. The Taiwanese-owned firm is about to open a development in the
upmarket Zhongguangcun district of Beijing. The price of one-bedroom serviced
suites at the property start from 1 million yuan (￡71,000).
Mr Azarias believes a week's staff training with a British butler will add
value. "The five-star hotel business is very competitive. We must find new ways
to enhance our service. That is why we have turned to an English butler," he
said.
Thirty years ago, servants would have been criticised as class traitors and
polite manners dismissed as devices used to maintain a social hierarchy. But Mr
Watson's predominantly young trainees appeared to be enjoying their
re-education.
"In the old days, our concept of service was very basic," said Frankle Guo, a
25-year-old reception manager. "It was just a job. We didn't try to anticipate
what our customers wanted. But Robert has really opened my mind. He's shown me
how to put the 'Wow!' factor into service."
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