Hanna Green, front office manager at the Queens Hotel, spoke about how the Festival impacts local hotels in Cheltenham and the great atmosphere it brings to the town.
Around a quarter of a million people are expected to attend the biggest week of horse racing in the country, a four-day event with 28 races in total, creating a huge buzz around the town centre.
“It’s really busy, electric. Everyone’s in a good mood. Obviously, the week is tailored to different days. You’ve got the Ladies’ Day on Wednesday, so you see a lot of high-end fashion, which is really great to see, on Thursday, St. Patrick’s Day. Obviously, you’ve got the Gold Cup on Friday, which is even busier,” said Green.
Managing a hotel during the busiest week of the year is not an easy task; it takes a lot of time to prepare and make sure everything is in place.
“We need to prep basically a year in advance. So, we need to make sure that we’re thinking about our suppliers, who we’re going to use, and have we got this all arranged? We need to think about obviously preparing for the high demand from our guests,” mentioned Green.
Several establishments across Cheltenham go all out during race week and make events tailored to the theme of the day, or to accommodate people before they head out to the racecourse.
The Queens Hotel does not miss out on this. Green explained how the hotel adapts to the week’s events so its guests have the best experience possible.
“We obviously tailor our services to all of our guests who come for racing. So, we change services a little bit. So, like the breakfast service, we tailor that to obviously the race people.
“So, we changed the timing; it’s a bit later now. That way, people get more time to lie in.
“And then we offer the Racing Post newspapers. They’re complementary on the desk. So, they [the guests] can come down, grab one of those, look at the betting, and then we obviously also provide the high-energy late-night bars. Obviously, one being our Regency Suite, where we’ve got our live music.”
As one of the most prestigious hotels in Cheltenham, the Queens receives various returning high-end guests.
“We do have a lot of clients that return from a corporate base. Like people at Racing Breaks, Sky Betting. We get a lot of those clients coming back to us, which is brilliant.
“And then we obviously get a lot of VIPs that are returning guests that have been coming here for well over five years, plus now, which is brilliant as well because a lot of them have horses that they race at Cheltenham,” said Green.
For Green, the best thing about working during the races comes down to the people she gets to meet during the week and the atmosphere that the town has.
“It’s just a really lively, buzzy atmosphere. Everyone’s in a good mood. Everyone’s happy. People love coming to this bar. This is obviously our Gold Cup bar.
“It’s nice because you always hear the roar of Cheltenham, what they say during the races, and that comes to the hotel as well. So, it’s just a really upbeat, fun atmosphere.”
