Ahead of the inaugural list of The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2023 on 19th September, 50 Best reveals the winner of the Art of Hospitality Award as Gleneagles, a luxury resort set in Scotland’s Southern Highlands. Managing director Conor O’Leary tells tales of pride and patriotism among his staff, who are encouraged to express their personality in delivering a unique brand of service that is officially the best in the world
“If you would have asked me what award we wanted to win as part of the 50 Best list, it would have been exactly this,” says Conor O’Leary, managing director of Gleneagles. “It wouldn’t have been an award for having the best facilities or for being the most stylish or luxurious, it would be about our people – the Art of Hospitality Award is simply the very best accolade any hotel can win.”
It is not by chance that the first pre-announced award, ahead of the first-ever list of The World’s 50 Best Hotels, puts the focus on arguably the most important aspect of any hotel: its hospitality.
The Art of Hospitality Award is selected by the same 580-strong Academy of experts whose independent votes create the 50 Best ranking itself. Each member of the global panel was asked to name the one hotel that offered them the single-best hospitality experience in the two-year voting window. In 2023, the winner of the award is the historic 232-bedroom Gleneagles, set deep in Scotland’s rolling glens in the bucolic county of Perthshire.
There's little reason to leave Gleneagles' grounds while staying at the hotel, from its lauded restaurants and bars to the captivating country escapades
Gleneagles’ people define its character. As a hotel, it is a unique proposition, based in Auchterarder, a remote town with a population of some 5,900. The nearest large conurbation is 35 minutes’ drive away and the Gleneagles resort is the beating heart of the area, drawing roughly 50 per cent of its 1,200 staff from the locale.
The sense of local pride and passion of those who work at the hotel is palpable. The three women who head up the Guest Relations division have clocked up 80 years’ service between them and the makeup of the staff is littered with stories of legacy and generational family history since the venue’s 1924 launch. It all adds up to an environment where people want to show off their region and devote their career to making the town’s hub the best possible version of itself.
“When our team members make the decision to join Gleneagles, it’s not like they are going to London, where if it doesn’t work out you can find another job at the five-star hotel next door,” says O’Leary. “Coming here is a commitment and I think when people make that decision, they are already bought into the philosophy of wanting to show off what we have. People are here because they've chosen to be here, or they're from here. Therefore they have more pride in what they do.
“For the team, this award is huge. They are able to go home and tell their mum and dad that they helped deliver the best service in the world. It’s a pretty special thing.”
Location, location, vocation
Due to its relative isolation, guests staying at Gleneagles rarely leave the resort. Its superlative facilities are designed to give good reason to book for longer, exploring an activity programme that O’Leary and team look to grow year on year so there is always something new for repeat customers.
Chief among the options, as per many luxury resorts in Scotland, is golf. Its three courses are ranked among the best in the world, with the PGA Centenary course playing host to the famous Ryder Cup in 2014. Its spa is widely considered the best in the country and it houses Scotland’s only two-Michelin-star restaurant in Restaurant Andrew Fairlie.
The Strathearn, the hotel's flagship restaurant, offers a taste of contemporary Scottish gastronomy in a luxurious dining room
Although where Gleneagles really comes to life is in the idiosyncratic activities that speak to its location. Salmon fishing on the River Tay, horse riding in the Ochil Hills, game shoots, off-road 4x4 driving, falconry and the latest to join the roster, ferreting, are propositions that few other hotels can offer.
“The horse-riding instructors are horse people,” says O’Leary. “They have found a job doing what they love and that comes through in the way that they teach. I’d love a job in golf, but I’m just not good enough. Due to the quality of what we have around us, we attract the best people and we just allow them to be themselves.”
In luxury hotels the world over, service and hospitality philosophies are often structured and rigid. Protocol for addressing guests is regularly scripted, as the hotels attempt to communicate their brand values with every interaction. Not so at Gleneagles.
“What we do here is actually very simple,” says O’Leary. “I don’t overcomplicate any philosophy when it comes to service, I just try to hire great people. We treat each other with genuine interest, affection and warmth and then I trust that those will be the behaviours the team exhibits to guests.
There is no codified rulebook for providing perfect hospitality, says managing director, Conor O'Leary
“We then give them the best possible equipment to do their job – be that a good fishing rod or golf club – and let them be a great ambassador for Gleneagles. We don’t prescribe how to give a fishing lesson; how they deliver it is entirely up to them.”
Flower of Scotland
Scotland’s de facto national anthem talks of the ‘wee bit of hill and glen’ that the country’s patriots fought for, referencing the region’s treasured rural landscape. The same strong sense of place is evident at Gleneagles, and it regularly circles back to ‘pride’, a word O’Leary and his team seem to focus on. “If you think of the phrase ‘conservative with a small ‘c’; we are ‘Scottish with a small ‘s’ and we have immense pride in our corner of Scotland,” he says. “We are in the heart of the community without any choice so let’s embrace it and support that community.
“When I first arrived here and was interviewing for my position, I was having dinner in The Strathearn, our flagship restaurant. A young lady, Robin, was looking after me and we were chatting away and I asked where she was from, she said ‘just down the road’. She went to primary school in the village, left secondary school and joined the hotel straight away. She’s now our restaurant manager at Gleneagles Townhouse in Edinburgh and is doing a super job. She’s not formally or classically trained; she has learnt everything she knows on the job. She found her own style of delivery and mixed it with her passion for the local area.”
For O’Leary, who has worked at Mandarin Oriental London, The Ritz, The Langham, Andaz Liverpool Street, The Churchill and has launched properties in Dubai and across the Middle East, Gleneagles occupies a unique place in his career. “Quite often in the hotel world you find yourself asking, ‘What’s next? Am I progressing quickly enough?,’ but ever since I’ve been at Gleneagles that question has never arisen. I’m not looking for anywhere else and I think that is the case for the vast majority of people here.
"Gleneagles is almost a calling and when you arrive – as a guest or member of staff – it really does feel like home.”
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