SUSAN YOUNG talks to Will Oakley, Managing Director of Cameron House, about his journey from the Caribbean to Scotland and the lessons learnt along the way.
On a gloriously bright afternoon at Cameron House, with Ben Lomond providing a stunning backdrop across Loch Lomond, I sat down with Will Oakley, the resort’s Managing Director, to find out more about the man tasked with creating a new strategic plan for the business and driving change – never an easy task.
Will took the helm of the lochside resort in January after a decade working in the Caribbean, although he did spend 2021 running Glenapp Castle, as he waited for international travel to resume.
But most recently, he was Managing Director of a 300-acre private resort, Jumby Bay Island by the Oetker Collection in Antigua. Under his leadership, the hotel’s turnover and profit grew, which saw it awarded with a 5-star Forbes rating.
The move to Cameron House represents Will’s biggest transformation challenge yet. “Coming into this business, I recognise that there is history and legacy, loyalty and its reputation to consider. My role now is not just about the elevation of revenues and profitability; but perhaps more importantly elevating the product offering, service offering, reputation, and leading its local workforce to deliver really good consistent service.
“Here I have 700 people in the workforce of which 90% live within a few miles of the hotel. We are extremely lucky, but it is incredibly important message when running the business and looking to take strategic decisions, that there is a responsibility around sustainability of the local economy for the workforce.”
The resort also has 7,000 loyal members across five different membership categories.
Says Will, “They don’t necessarily all live in the immediate locale, and there is a need to work on improved communication and the membership relationship. We really need to bring that together, that is one of my objectives – and we will do this by communication, reward and recognition.
“There are hotels out there who work their entire lives working to try to bring up a community like we have got. So we are very lucky. These clients love being connected with the business and the brand, and they want to be well looked after and recognised.
“In Scotland it is all about relationships, in fact this is something Scotland has in common with the Caribbean. Whereas London has more of a performance culture.”
Will himself entered hospitality at the age of 18, although hospitality wasn’t initially his first choice. “I was actually looking to join the army, but Sir Hugh Wontner, who was Chairman of Savoy Hotels, wrote a book which I read in the school careers department. Hotels appealed to me because I never saw myself being stuck behind a desk. I wanted to be connected to people.”
At 18, he applied to the Savoy Group straight from school and joined its management trainee scheme.
Will reminisces, “At the time, they had 300 applicants and took just eight. The Savoy was the best hotel you could train at in the world. It was the ultimate apprenticeship – you worked from the bottom up, got a degree in hotel management, and five years of hotel experience. In your fourth or fifth year, you got to choose anywhere in the world you wanted to work.
“At the end of five years I was a well-rounded hotel operator, but without any experience, what I mean is all I had was the groundwork, but I hadn’t actually got any management experience.”
Will’s first role was with the Lanesborough, but by the age of 25, he got his first General Manager role with Firmdale Hotels.
He smiles, “Like all 25-year-olds, I thought I was invincible. I made lots of mistakes, but you learn from your mistakes, and having the ability to ask for help always sat well with me, I never saw it as a weakness.”
Then he took a decision to continue his career not in big five-star hotels but in luxury boutique properties in London. “I get the most enjoyment from ensuring everyone is happy and enjoying themselves. If something is not right, I want to make it right. I do realise that you can’t do that all the time, but that’s my mindset – we are in hospitality for a reason. I wanted more touch with guests and staff – and that was the attraction of the boutique properties.”
He went on to run a few more hotels, but in the early 2000s he moved out of hotels and invested in a restaurant business in London. They also set up food shops, before selling as the 2008 crash hit. This led to Will joining the Bespoke Hotel Group, opening hotels and managing transformations.
He explains, “I took a hotel a year out from opening to the finished product, and I also got involved in refurbishments. The Chairman of Bespoke Hotels said something to me when I joined, ‘Tell me when the adrenalin has worn off.’
“I didn’t quite understand it at the time, but when the adrenalin wore off, I knew exactly what he meant and the next project loomed.
“When I started at Bespoke I didn’t know how long a project was going to take. By the time I went to Barbados in 2014, I knew from my experience there that it would not be an 18 month project. I knew it would take at least five years. In fact, it took seven.”
Will and his family moved to Barbados, and the project he was tasked with was to turn around Cobbler’s Cove. It had enjoyed a good reputation but had an ageing client base. It was a product which needed serious investment, and with a recent a change in ownership—the son had inherited it from his father, the opportunity was apparent.
“We decided not to close the hotel and make the changes over 18 months, but to manage the project in a staged way and try and take everyone on the journey. All of the staff were local, and we didn’t want to put them out of work for 18 months – when actually they were the backbone of the business.
“With the right mindset, and by ensuring buy-in from grassroots level i.e. the 90% who deliver the service within the workforce, we were able to turn the business around.
“I was the only national, non-Barbadian to work there, and it was a privilege after I left to leave the hotels in the hands of its first ever female black General Manager. She is still there today and it is 100% locally run. It has been invested in, the product is great, the brand is great, the customer profile is younger, but the older customers enjoy it too. They co-habit in the same space.”
During the pandemic, Will and his family returned to the UK and to Scotland – to Glenapp Castle, which he joined in 2021. Says Will, “The intention had always been to return to the Caribbean, but we couldn’t until international travel resumed.
“My wife said when we got married, ‘I will go anywhere in the world with you but not Scotland…’ and of course we ended up in Ayrshire,” he chuckles. “She had never been north of the Watford Gap. Now she loves it.
“However, we found the remoteness of Glenapp quite tough, but we could also see the positives. Ayr was an hour away and going to Ikea was a day out, but we loved the local community and the village pub. It had bags of character and charm. We found it a very friendly environment.”
When international travel resumed, Will and the family headed back to the Caribbean and a 300-acre private island in Antigua with 52 private homes and a resort. They stayed there for two years; however, before long Will found himself yearning for something different.
“It was a different world- it wasn’t my world and my family’s world. We lived on the island, but we didn’t have a community – we also wanted our youngest to have an uplift in her education. In the Caribbean they actively teach the children to work slowly to conserve energy, because of the humidity and the heat, that’s why there is a lovely Mañana, mañana culture.”
Today, his family live in Northamptonshire and Will lives in Scotland during the week. He tells me, “This is working better for us than living on a small island. No one respected my time off there so it was seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
“Here I can go to Northampton and focus on the family, but when I am here at the hotel I work long hours. I can almost achieve two weeks’ work in one week. I also don’t have to worry about the family dynamic when I am here. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t think about them and speak to them, but the point is I can be a bit selfish and focus on the family that is here.”
That is just what he is doing. He says, “I’ve been improving communications and making sure everyone is coming on the same journey. I try and do a video update every month with the staff—because I don’t get to see every single one of the team every month. This ensures they hear and see from me and get an update on progress.
“I also have to find the right times to pop up and be around, talk to the team, and I go and have lunch with them in the canteen. These are all important moments for me to connect and I recognise in the early days and weeks people felt a bit uncomfortable at times ‘Oh no Will is coming to sit next to me…’ but actually once they realise I am human and I care about them as an individual they relax.
“Realistically I think this will be a three to four year project. That doesn’t mean I will exit then, but I think it will take that time to complete the transformation. You have to bring a bigger workforce and a bigger executive team with you. If there is any areas of dysfunctionality, you have to work through it and break down any barriers.”
He continues, “We are executing a new programme aimed at ensuring our team retains the warmth, flair, and distinctly local personality that defines true Scottish hospitality.
“That said, we also want to provide some clear prompts so that no matter who’s serving a guest, the experience feels consistent. We want to ensure that this journey we are on is one that both the customers and team buy into and enjoy and that the change is very visible.
“While we’ll always listen to feedback, there’s absolutely no place for abusive behaviour from guests. I will not tolerate that. It puts off our younger team members, many of whom are just starting out – and that’s one of the reasons people leave this industry too soon.
“We need to create a safe and respectful working environment. Cameron House is a place where people from all walks of life gather – you’ll find hardworking grafters dining alongside landed gentry.
“Everyone is welcome here, so long as they respect the space and the people around them. That’s what makes us unique. But if someone feels out of place in that atmosphere – perhaps this just isn’t the right venue for them. We can’t be everything to everyone, but what we can be is a warm, welcoming place for those who align with our values. Perception is everything in this industry.
“Our top priority is delivering value for money – guests should leave feeling that every penny spent was worth it. We’re not overpriced, but we do recognise that to elevate the guest experience, our attention to detail has to be sharper. That’s where we’ll stand apart.
“Running a business today is not easy – whether it’s political instability, rising operational costs, or pressures on the cost of living. You often see early signs of recession in property and hospitality – and right now, the signs are there.
“But I believe that Cameron House has a strong place in this market. We provide an escape, a break from the everyday. If someone is going to spend money, we want them to feel like coming here was worth it. That’s the bar we need to reach.
“One of my personal missions is to tackle the seasonality challenge. Having spent the last decade working in seasonal businesses, and have been part of breaking that cycle, I don’t have the tricks up my sleeve to deliver it overnight, but over the next three years I think we will be able to demonstrate there is year-round business here at Cameron House.
“I think with the right strategic direction that this can be an iconic year-round business, delivering in many different guises. Leisure at the weekend and a mixture of leisure, groups and corporate during the week. We have the golf, the marina, the spa, and the lodges. The majority are timeshare ownership, but there are multiple weeks available for rental.
“Why not in the depths of winter come and bring your laptop and stay here and look at Ben Lomond? Do your work from here? I will know whether we are succeeding because success will start to be measured on the feedback guests give.
“That is our number one benchmark. Are we consistent, are we getting it right, are we looking at the detail of what the guests are telling us? What do they want, and what do we have to deliver on and if we can start to deliver on those and show we are listening, people will start to come on that journey.
“I think the word’s ‘five-star’ and ‘luxury’ get over-used. In my short tenureship here to date, I’ve noticed our biggest and loyalist audience are the Scots, followed by the domestic market, and we need to be much more consistent in what we do as a big business.
“We need to use the information that is available to us to get fitter and better. We want Cameron House to stand out as Cameron House. There are iconic hotels in Scotland and across the UK, and we want to have our own identity. We don’t want to be compared to any other hotel.
“We want to be known simply as Cameron House.”
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