Travelodge’s top management team are to take over running one of its hotels to give staff the day off as reward for delivering the best customer service across the budget chain.
Chief operating officer Jon Hendry Pickup will take on the role of receptionist and UK operations director Debbie Husband will oversee serving customers at the Bar Café at the 203-room Newcastle Central Travelodge.
The hotel team will be made up of other senior figures from the company’s revenue management, finance, HR, sales and marketing, operations, customer service and maintenance teams on Friday (November 14).
Senior management will serve breakfast, ensure all rooms are cleaned to brand standard, check guests in from 3pm, cook and serve evening meals and manage the bar over 24 hours.
The 45 staff at the hotel beat off competition from colleagues across 500 UK Travelodges to achieve the highest customer satisfaction scores during the summer – the company’s busiest trading period.
Besides being given the day off work, they have been given an all-expenses paid night out as their prize.
The senior management team’s shift will start at 7am on Friday and finish at 7am the next morning.
Hendry Pickup said: “My team and I are very excited about this challenge; we regularly spend time in hotels but this is the first time ever that the hotel is going to be operated without any hotel team members, it’s just senior management.
“However, I do have a couple of team members who started their career working in a Travelodge hotel such as our UK operations director Debbie Husband, who joined the company as a hotel manager at the Edinburgh Central Travelodge ten years ago.
“The hotel is almost completely booked out so it’s going to be a very busy 24 hours.”
The hotel’s manager Michael Johnstone said: “My team and I are absolutely thrilled to have won this recognition and we’re all extremely grateful to our senior management team for coming in to take over the hotel whilst we celebrate.”