Creating a ‘go to’ destination

Tuesday 05 February 2019

La Grande Mare Hotel, Golf and Country Club had been a family affair for around 40 years, owned by brothers Chris and Simon Vermeulen, until the property was purchased on New Year’s Eve by Pula Investments, a company owned by billionaire Stephen Lansdown.

Mr Lansdown had already selected his new General Manager before the purchase was finalised and Sacha Cauwels–Wigan arrived in the island just a few days before the deal was sealed, ready and waiting to take on her new role.

Trish Grover met Sacha to learn more about Pula’s aspirations for La Grande Mare for Connect. 

Pictured: Sacha Cauwels–Wigan.

Originally from the Netherlands, Sacha’s experience in hospitality management is varied and extensive. But despite having help roles in Dubai, Tanzania, Dutch West Indies, Edinburgh and most recently in Cornwall, she is extremely excited about her new role in Guernsey. Having agreed to take the post based on a 24-hour visit in December and taking the helm on 1 January, this has been a real ‘baptism by fire.’

“I effectively went upstairs on 31 Dec as a hotel guest and came down on 1 January as the new General Manager ready to take on the new role. You get a feeling if a position is right for you and I have turned down good opportunities because somehow they didn’t feel quite right but I am really excited to be here.”

Sacha’s most recent position in Cornwall was working for a company that owned holiday homes where she was responsible for the implementation of its customer care strategy supporting them in offering a five-star service. 

Her first impressions of the island are very positive

“The island has a similar feel to Cornwall – the coast and the cliffs and the sea – and it seems very community-focused in terms of the engagement and interaction with local people. It’s the same in Cornwall. Even though it’s on the mainland it doesn’t always feels as if it is. We always said that Cornwall was far from everywhere. I also grew up in a small community in the Netherlands, again on the coast, so that’s very similar too. But Guernsey feels more like home than anywhere else I have been in the world.”

Pictured: Sacha Cauwels–Wigan.

Sacha has enjoyed a successful career which has taken her around the world. She completed her first training placement in Aruba which gave her the taste for travel and the hospitality sector was the perfect industry to facilitate that. 

“I have been quite lucky in some respects but we are all in control of our own destiny and if an opportunity comes along you have to pack up and go. I am also fortunate in that I have a very supportive family.”

Sacha’s early exposure to the hospitality sector was through her own parents. 

“They had their own business running a butcher that supplied the hospitality industry in the area we lived. In the winter it was very much just the local community and everyone knew everyone else and then in the summer lots of tourists arrived and the population would explode. It was similar in Cornwall and no doubt similar to some extent here. Then October things die down again. I love being able to engage with the local community and getting to know the regulars who come in for lunch once or twice a week. That kind of personal service is what really speaks to people.

“I have generally always worked in four- or five-star resorts whether that’s golf, leisure or spa and latterly in places that needed a certain degree of TLC or refurbishment.”

While she doesn’t envisage any major fundamental changes to La Grande Mare she is looking forward to working with the new owner to build on an already successful business and maximising new opportunities that she can already see.

“What sealed it for me was when I met up with Stephen we talked about La Grande Mare’s potential. When I walk around I can see potential everywhere and I become a bit like a kid in a candy shop.  Stephen is very successful in seeing potential and adding value to businesses. It’s really exciting to work with someone like him and sharing ideas. 

“The Vermeulen family has created something really special here and for a single family to do that is truly remarkable. There is nothing really ‘broken’ that has to be fixed but of course there are always things you can do.”

Sacha, by her own admission, is quite ‘picky’ which reflects her service-driven approach.

“You can’t deliver a four- or five-star service if you don’t continually pick at things. My view has always been - and I have always said this to the teams I have had the pleasure to lead - that when we arrive in the morning we should be the most demanding customers who walk in that day. If we demand the highest standard we will have exceeded the expectations of everyone else who comes in that day.”

Pictured: La Grande Mare. 

Sacha has led many teams from many backgrounds and cultures. She believes that both her own style and general team management styles have changed since she took on her first leadership role.

“In the past you would tell someone to do something and they would simply go and do it; whereas now it’s more about engagement and empowerment with ideas coming from the team not just from one individual. This is great and has been a change across society. The millennials were treated like adults at a much younger age than I was. They matured earlier, are more vocal and had opinions at an age where we were not encouraged to have one. 

“This means that a business isn’t relying on one person at the top but on the foundations of the whole team.”

LGM has a team of around 45 staff.

“We aren’t looking to reduce numbers,” said Sacha. “We have some really good people here and I want to do things that will encourage people to voice their opinions. The hotel has a good reputation for training restaurant staff in terms of service delivery and we want to build on that.”

This year the plan is ‘business as usual’ and a question consolidating the business -although listening to Sacha’s enthusiasm, a few tweaks here and there wouldn’t be surprising. One of the initial challenges will be the 2020 when the long-term timeshare arrangements which currently account for around 75% of the hotel’s bedrooms will have come to an end. Staying leisure visitors, group bookings and contracts might all form part of the mix.

Sacha sees this more of an opportunity than a challenge.

“We have a year to look at what works what doesn’t and where the revenues and margins can be maximised. Golf is a significant part of the business and I want to 

encourage local junior golfers, then in the longer term to establish La Grande Mare as a destination where people come to Guernsey to play golf. People go away for long weekends or longer just to play so we want to benefit from that market. 

“We haven’t been able to seek local corporate accounts or groups because we haven’t had the capacity to accommodate them but in 2020 that will not be the case. We want to become a hub in the community for events - weddings, charity events, baby showers - we have good bookings for this year but I want to grow that going forward. La Grande Mare has a good reputation and I want to reach out to local people to build on that.

“We have this year to put the plans in place for 2020. That will mean building relationships with tour operators/golf specialists – who need to see the hotel this year before they can sell it for next – with other hoteliers and with Visit Guernsey etc.”

Sacha has faced a number of more ‘daunting’ situations during her career, thought she seems to take most things in her stride.

“I am quite a down-to-earth person and I tend to take things as they come so I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have been daunted by a project but perhaps with hindsight have thought that maybe someone else might have faded sooner. 

“Shareholding can be challenging from a strategic point of view, when you have various parties with an interest in the business all with different ideas about where they want the business to go. I have had positions where I have had to bring various shareholders together to try establish a business plan that can flourish. That’s clearly not the case here.”

Sacha describes her experience in Tanzania as one that changed her as a leader.

“I worked in Tanzania for a while following a period in Dubai where of course everything is possible. They have the money. So one minute something isn’t there, and the next a plane is sent off somewhere, and you have it. 

Then you find yourself somewhere like Dar es Salaam where luxury is within the confines of the hotel. The people who work for you don’t have anything much but become the provider for their extended families feeding 15 or 20 people from their hotel wages.  

“I just couldn’t understand why everything was so hard. I had to check every morning that the tables were set up for breakfast and there was always something missing I couldn’t understand why it happened all the time. At the time I found that quite difficult. I was much younger and I wasn’t born a patient person – that is an acquired skill I have learnt over time. I got really frustrated and when I flew home for a month I had decided I had to get out of there. But when I went back, all the staff were in the atrium and singing their local song to welcome me back and it was one of those moments when you realise that people value you in one form or another and I still get goose bumps just thinking about it.

“So I took some basic Swahili and local culture classes and learned about family hierarchy, and that service was just not something that came naturally. So you could ask for a coffee and you would get one with no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ – nor milk or sugar unless you asked for it. They would do whatever management said but wouldn’t think for themselves. It was a huge learning curve.

“When I came back to Europe and I moved to Edinburgh and I realised that the experience had changed me fundamentally from being a manager to being a leader.”

Sacha expects to face issues such as recruitment and is getting to grips on the local issues like, housing licensing, air and sea links etc.

“The hospitality industry is very transient by its very nature so I am sure that recruitment will be a challenge here as elsewhere. Attracting the right people and then keeping them long enough is important.

“We need to offer a unique experience with great service so that we become a ‘go to’ destination – a  leading golf resort and destination.

“I am looking forward to getting really settled in. This role is so exiting. It brings together all the things I have done in my career. I have worked in the ‘finished article, as well as in positions where a total rethink was required. Here we have a business that already works well but we can make it into the really finished article and make it amazing.”

You can read this article and others in this month's issue of Connect which is out now.