Sir Rocco Forte may be adept at running 5-star hotels, but don't ask him to help out in the business centre - you see, he cant use a photocopier

“Sorry, I don’t know how to work it” he says, scurrying to find someone with the skills to copy a magazine front cover. The cover of the current issue of Condé Nast Traveller to be precise, which lists Forte’s St. David’s Hotel in Cardiff in their “21 of the World’s Coolest Hotels” feature.

Rocco John Vincent Forte, at 54 trim, swarthy and immaculate in an Italian suit sharper than a three-starred chef’s Sabatier, ushers me apologetically past electricians and carpet-fitters currently bringing his central London office up to five-star standard. The functional building sits a few streets south of the faded splendour of the Café Royal where, as a determined 13 year-old, he began working as cellar-boy in the school holidays.

This is RF Hotels, Forte’s new vehicle. His estate consists currently of the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, purchased in 1997; the newly-opened - and very cool - St. David’s, which was designated one of the Leading Hotels of the World before construction was even complete; the Astoria and D’Angleterre Hotels, both in St. Petersburg; the Savoy in Florence and the Hotel de Russie in Rome, both currently undergoing refurbishment and scheduled to open later this year; and new-build projects in Manchester and Berlin.

I tell him I am not going to rake once again over the Granada coals and he is visibly gratified when I ask just one question relating to the £3.8bn hostile take-over of the Forte hospitality empire in 1996: hindsight being, as it is, 20-20 vision, would he have done anything differently?

“The only thing I perhaps should have done was to have been closer to Mercury Asset Management” he says of the City fund management giant that held 15% of Forte shares - and 15% of Granada’s. The firm very publicly backed Gerry Robinson’s audacious craic at an industry institution rather than support the Forte family’s promise to reconstruct their sprawling empire.

“Don’t forget, though, that Granada paid a very full price and that’s always ignored in amongst the emotion and the passion” he says. “But it’s sad to lose a business you’ve been involved in all your life, that your father built up, and which had a good future - and then see it turned into a very ordinary business…” His words tail off, as does my desire to press the point - looking back is clearly not his favourite pastime.

Sir Rocco is a knight of dining ardour when it comes to the business he adores. He lives, moves and breathes the industry, is passionate about standards and has little time for those that attempt to cut corners. “For a while, you can make money by overcharging, cutting costs, not delivering standards” he says, “but eventually it’ll catch up with you. The reality of a service industry is about the consistency which customers know they will get in an establishment.”

The cheapest customer to market to is the one you look after, that keeps coming back he says. You can control costs as much as you like, but if you don’t have the turnover to start with, it’s self-defeating. It’s about attention to detail, the little touches.”

Staffing levels also play their part, with 1½ staff allocated to each guest: “it would have been 3 in the old days, but that’s not possible now. But if you have to cut down, do it at the back of the house, not the front - people say to me they always know it’s a Granada hotel if there’s no staff!”

But now, just two years into his new venture, Forte does not have cutbacks on his mind. RF grew from his determination not to indulgence in wound-licking following the take-over. “The first thing I did was to try to make a bid for the exclusive hotels and Meridien, which Granada said it was going to sell” he says. “I went to the City and raised a billion pounds, between debt and equity. But after 4 months, I gave up - we couldn’t agree terms. They’d probably changed their minds about Meridien by then, anyway.”

The day after, he went straight into his office and told his people what he planned to do: “I’d had a few offers to do other things, to chair other companies, but there was nothing that really appealed. So I decided to start a new business.”

Initially, Forte considered acquiring an existing chain of hotels, but it seemed unlikely that he would be able to pick up suitably profitable businesses at a fair price. And so the decision was taken to acquire properties individually and develop others from scratch.

The first new-build is the stunning, 148-room, five-star St. David’s Hotel and Spa in the Welsh capital’s regenerated docks area. With stark white balconies, a towering atrium, acres of glass and décor designed by Forte’s sister Olga Polizzi, the hotel’s cruise-ship lines scream cutting-edge chic. The RIBA Journal, bible of British architects, describes the hotel as looking like “a giant bird landing in the docks.”

“We made a statement in Cardiff” Forte enthuses. “A luxury hotel is about individuality, but each hotel must respect its environment. The Cardiff hotel is in an area with very modern buildings, but in Florence, our hotel was built in 1896, so the refurbishment will reflect that. But I wouldnt do anything camp - camp quickly goes out of fashion.”

So why Cardiff? “I looked at where there might be a suitable site and where grant money may be available and Cardiff came up. There’s been a huge amount of business investment into the area.”

The search is now on for more sites. “I realised that most of the major UK and European cities don’t have a luxury hotel and I think theres a demand.

Forte intends to correct this lapse of luxury, as long as suitable sites arise and the numbers crunch. But he fears he may have missed the boat when it comes to the acquisition of existing businesses. “If I’d started immediately after the take-over, there was a 6-month window where prices were low” he says, “then they went sky-high again.”

The Cardiff hotel’s hydrotherapy spa is an important part of the mix, attracting non-business guests in off-peak periods and at weekends. The five-night ‘Sheer Indulgence’ package, including a single room with dinner and breakfast and such exotic treatments as a Jet Blitz, Algae Wrap and the frightening prospect of a Body Polish, costs around a not-unreasonable £1,000. In Forte’s opinion, his spa facilities better those provided by the traditional health farms and he is firmly pitching the Cardiff operation in competition to them. City-centre RF hotel spas will offer the same exclusivity, but on a scaled-down basis.

Asked how he foresees the industry changing in the future, Forte cites alliance as a major factor. The UK lags behind the USA in consolidating bed-stock, with just 40% of its hotels belonging to chains, against America’s 60%. France has a wealth of medium-sized hotel chains, aided by government grants towards the creation of 3-star hotels.

“Also, the business has become more professional and that will continue” he goes on; “for example, consortium marketing didn’t exist 20 years ago.” Reservation methods will evolve too, he feels, with guests using the internet rather than dedicated booking systems.

Sir Rocco’s general managers are, he says, his most valuable asset and recruitment at this level is the most important decision he makes after choosing the location for his hotels. His flair for picking the best allows him to avoid becoming interventionist. “If I have a good manager, I can develop him, add value to him” he claims, “but if I have a bad one, whatever I do is never going to rub off. It’s like newspapers - if a proprietor is constantly telling his editor what to write, he’s not going to get a very good editor!”

So who is the hotelier’s hotelier? Who does he admire? Forte rattles off a list as long as a concierge’s arm reaching for a tip - “I think Marriott is a great business” he says, “because they have a hotel man as their chairman. And the Four Seasons group consistently achieve high standards. David Michels at Stakis is a first-class operator. And David Levin of the Capital Hotel and restaurant. And the Chewton Glen Hotel near Southampton. And George Goring in Victoria. And Nick Chapman at the Castle at Taunton…”

And his favourite hotel? “My father used to say his favourite was the one that makes the most money!” he says of the still-sprightly nonagenarian who built his empire from a London ice-cream parlour and was once referred to by Margaret Thatcher as an example to all Britons.

“I can’t say that I have a favourite” he says, just prior to rattling off a list that includes the Ritz in Madrid - “visually, it’s a very attractive property” - the Plaza Athenée in Paris - “I like its feeling of exclusivity” - and Claridges, for its entrance-hall and old-world charm. He also mentions the romantic, beach-side environment of the Sandy Lane in Barbados and California’s once faded, but now remodelled, Beverly Hills Hotel, the only one on his list with which he was not at some time involved.

Of the future, he says “My theatre is the continent of Europe and the UK. There’s a lack of facilities and I have an opportunity to provide them. I’m looking at Paris, Madrid, Geneva…” And London? “I’ve considered a lot of things, but I haven’t found any that make sense. I’ll keep looking…”

He sees himself as eventually having an interest in around 20 hotels and with current projects and those not yet made public, he claims to be almost halfway there. But expansion is unlikely to involve a move to public company status. “The City seems to have a hang-up about a son taking over from his father - yet in Italy, the most successful businesses are family-run.”

And, in the end, it is he that returns to the take-over - “I don’t have an axe to grind with the City - in their shoes, at £4 a share, I’d have sold too! I had a lot of friends in the City, in the press - but, to the less-informed press, I was a pariah, I was my father’s son. Now, I’m exactly the same person, but I’m a bloody hero, because I’ve set up a new business! But when you’re a public company, you’re under scrutiny and dealing with institutional shareholders takes up a lot of time. Why go public if you don’t have to?”

”I’ve surrounded myself with people of quality” he tells me, as he escorts me out, “and I’m enjoying what I’m doing now, very much. Working on your own, you suddenly realise your own value. Maybe in three or four years time, I’ll look back and say it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Operating office equipment may not be Sir Rocco’s forté, but when it comes to operating luxury hotels, I get the feeling that I’ve just spent an hour with the man who wrote the instruction book.

Ian Freeman is Head of PR at First Leisure Corporation PLC, where he can work the photocopier, the fax, the franking machine and the shredder

CV

Born 18^th January 1945

Educated at Downside School and Pembroke College, Oxford

Trained as accountant and worked at Dixon Wilson (the firm still handles Fortes personal accounting)

Started full-time at Forte in 1969 and eventually became Personnel Director

Appointed Chief Executive 1983

Appointed Chairman 1993

Knighted in 1995 for services to tourism

Lives in Chelsea, London with wife Aliai and their three children aged 11, 9 and 6

Rocco Forte sidebar

My favourite things

Food: Spaghetti alla vongole

Car: Ferrari

Overseas trip: Fishing in Iceland - every year for 16 years

Hobby: Shooting

TV programme: Have I Got News For You?

Movie: One Eyed Jacks (Western, 1961, directed by and starring Marlon Brando)

Play: Oliviers Othello

Book: Clementine by Mary Soames