Hannah Folwell, sales and marketing manager at Taplow House Hotel & Spa, talks about the hotel’s new direction following the addition of an intimate spa, including moving away from the weddings market and focusing on leisure guests.
“We are trying to move away from quite a formal experience to an informal experience,” says Hannah Folwell, sales and marketing manager at Taplow House Hotel & Spa. The spa element is new, following a £2 million renovation which saw the addition of six treatment rooms, a nail bar and pedicure room, a relaxation lounge, a sauna and an outdoor whirlpool, as well as a refresh of the property’s public spaces.
I am speaking with Folwell in the hotel’s high-ceilinged Garden Room, a serene space complete with striking artworks and large windows which frame the acres of manicured land the hotel sits on.
Make no mistake, the ‘informal’ rebrand of Taplow House does not mean it is going after the budget market, but that it has freed itself from the stuffier confines of traditional luxury. On departure, I think to myself that staying here feels a bit like paying a visit to your wealthy aunt who lives in the countryside, and this is entirely deliberate.
When guests arrive, they are greeted with a deskless check-in, which was introduced earlier this year. “We want our check-in experience to be about convenience,” says Folwell, “so we can do a deskless check-in now, where you are seated and we can do check-ins completely from iPads. It is important for us that the journey for the guests is very free flowing throughout the business.”
The hotel has also ditched its two AA Rosette restaurant, in favour of a more casual all-day menu, with guests able to sit down and dine in any of the property’s public spaces: “We haven’t taken away the quality of the food or the quality of the service, that is still deliverable to you. But it is just making it more comfortable,” says Folwell.
Naturally, the addition of a spa also feeds into the hotel’s aim of making guests feel relaxed and at ease. The idea of adding a spa first came about four years ago, but with Taplow House being a listed building, planning permission proved difficult to secure. A scarcity of building supplies worsened by Brexit and the pandemic inevitably delayed the project further, but Taplow House was able to stay open throughout the refit and work around guests, only closing for two weeks in January of this year, which is typical for the property anyway.
Folwell jokes about the stress of the whole thing, but in the end she knows it was all worth it: “It adds that modern luxury experience to the hotel. Beforehand, we were very much a wedding venue and the MICE market was a huge part of our business. We have actually stepped away from that now as part of our strategy… right now, we are just focusing on leisure guests, and when they are here, enhancing their stay and giving them more things to experience and more things to do.”
Taplow House has partnered with Temple Spa for its new facilities and during my stay, I am treated to a ‘Go Guy Executive’ facial by Spa Manager Soraia Fernandes. It is a thoroughly relaxing experience and I genuinely see a real difference in my face afterwards – glowing and without a blemish to be seen. Folwell tells me they partnered with the brand because the therapists genuinely love it. She explains: “There are so many other brands that I have worked with and the therapists do not like the products, but with Temple Spa, they rave about the consistency of the oils that we are using and the longevity of them.”
The affordability of the range was another major advantage and is in keeping with Taplow House’s new ‘relaxed luxury’ mantra. “It is the type of range that you can have a really luxurious treatment with and feel that you can take it home with you. They are so accessible right now and that is so important to us. We want you to be able to maintain that routine after you leave the spa – it is not just a treatment you have and then the experience is over.”
Speaking of luxury, does Folwell think that the modern traveller’s idea of what constitutes a luxury break has changed? “I think it depends on your property” she responds. “That really high service standard, that Michelin star dining world, there will always be a demand for that. But I do think at some luxury properties now, people are looking for a break. If you have just travelled from London and you are suited and booted, you don’t necessarily want to get into a suit again to go back to dinner – it is actually your time to relax.”
Folwell also thinks this approach allows Taplow House to feel more welcoming and inclusive, and in turn, open the property out to new audiences. “We had a couple of solo female travellers stay with us recently and they were both saying to me that it is so nice to actually be able to come to a hotel as a solo female traveller and feel comfortable.”
Folwell also understands that friendly service is a key part of delivering happy, relaxed guests and says a more conversational and casual approach to service has been adapted across the hotel’s team. She admits that recruiting for the spa has been challenging (it is not currently fully staffed), but notes they have been lucky to find a team of therapists all from the local market, a feat which many hotels struggle to achieve.
The spa team has also been trained in Front of House and F&B, which allows for a level of flexibility among the staff that Folwell says is “necessary” for smaller-scale operations. She explains: “Being independent, we don’t have any other pools of resources to draw from, so for us to have staff that are able to assist in other departments when needed, it is really important. I think it is also highly beneficial to the individuals that come in and work with us, as it gives them that all round experience.”
She is also happy to report that the new spa team have also settled in well and have not objected to getting their hands dirty elsewhere when required. “I think we were concerned that there might be a divide between the spa team and the hotel team,” confesses Fulwell, “because we have all worked together for so long, so to then bring in a whole new department can be really challenging. They have all taken it on so well though and they are all very hands on. If there is a quiet time, they are always willing to step in and help out in other areas, which is really nice.”
As the spa is only a couple of months old, I ask Folwell how the marketing strategy is going and she tells me that social media will be a big focus in the coming months. Like everyone else, Taplow House has noticed the online shift towards video content and is looking into setting up a TikTok account. I joke that utilising the app, which was initially known for viral dance crazes, is something of a terrifying prospect to many hoteliers. “TikTok is here and it is not going away,” says Folwell. “I think there is something a lot more realistic about the video format. It is harder to edit a video, whereas if you have a photo in Photoshop, you can make it look 100 times better within a matter of minutes. I think that is why consumers trust videos more.”
There is another social channel that the hotel heavily relies on and it comes as something of a shock to me. Folwell says that Facebook, often dismissed by social media gurus as a dying platform, has been a key factor in getting the word out about Taplow House’s new look.
“We work with Facebook groups in the local area, so a couple of Mum groups and the village group and there has been proactive outreach to them,” explains Fulwell. In recent months, the hotel has hosted these groups for ‘canape and Prosecco’ evenings, where they come in for free, see the property and learn about the treatments on offer.
The strategy has worked: “There is so much engagement on these platforms,” says Folwell. “You can just share your posts in them and thousands of people follow them and it is that brand awareness. You might not get huge levels of engagement, but it is just that constant kind of communication. That community side of Facebook is a real asset to hotels.”
There are no plans for the Taplow House team to rest on their laurels either, as Folwell tells me they have recently submitted another planning permission application. “We want to build some accommodation on the outside of the building,” she says. “We have a listed outhouse out there and we want to convert that into three bedrooms. It will be ground floor access, more luxury and high end, a bit more like a suite, but it will be outside.”
There are also plans to refurbish all the bedrooms at the hotel as well, but this is more of a long-term plan and there is no official timeline as of yet. Folwell explains: “This is effectively phase one for us and I think from the feedback, it is just something we now want to continue. I think it has already just enhanced the whole experience and made it so much better, so hopefully, we will have a timeline on that soon.”
