By Susan Young
I first met Craig Munro when he was General Manager at the Hilton Doubletree in Glasgow but shortly after he headed on to pastures new taking on a role for the Chris Stewart Group as General Manager at the soon to be launched AC Hotel by Marriott Glasgow, managed by RBH, in January 2023.
We caught up in the AC Hotel by Marriott, where after 18 months, Craig is finally able to draw breath, and he tells me he is “loving it.”
But hospitality wasn’t his first love indeed he wanted to be musician. Says Craig, “That was my dream.” To this aim he studied jazz at the Guild Hall in London but came back to Glasgow to continue his music career as a saxophonist and took a job at the Kelvin Park Lorne to earn some extra cash in his spare time.
Craig says, “I worked my way up from kitchen porter, to doing breakfast and later went into the finance side. I was lucky in that I had a good supportive manager in the shape of Gordon Fraser. He gave me chances. Not only did I enjoy it but I also realised that I was alright at it.”
However, one of the biggest shocks he had was reading a story in the Sunday Herald which revealed that the Lorne was rumoured to be turned into a refugee hostel. Luckily for the team a pro-active recruiter at Cameron House jumped on the opportunity to get some new staff and Craig ended up at Loch Lomond for a couple of years.
The manager at the time was Roddy Whiteford, and it was a finance role that Craig went on to. His next move came when he got a call from his former manager at the Lorne who was opening a new Novotel in Glasgow.
Says Craig, “In 2001 I got a call from Gordon, and he asked if I would like to take on the role of F&B Manager there. I jumped at the opportunity. I was then lucky enough to be put through a management development programme to allow me to progress to a General Manager role.”
He says, “I was fortunate in that people gave me chances. For instance, when I was F&B Manager the manager of the hotel said how do you fancy managing the front office, I said I didn’t even know how to answer the telephones.”
By the age of 24 he was General Manager of the Ibis hotel on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. He worked his way through from there. In fact, Craig stayed with Accor, who managed the hotels he was part of, for 15 years.
He explains, “There were loads of opportunities and I moved about their hotels. Mostly Glasgow and Edinburgh but Aberdeen too. I was also able to give input and change things.
“The last thing I did for Accor was re-invent the bar at the Novotel in Edinburgh. I went to the board and said I wanted to reinvent a bar that used to be there on the site of the hotel called The Tap. It was a punk bar, and the idea was to create a bar that was influenced by punk. I didn’t think the board would go for it, but they did. We wanted to employ people who were more edgy with tattoos and such like, at the time this was almost unheard of in hotels, but we were able to recruit people who suited the bar.
“We opened The Tap Music Lounge and we did live music seven days a week – that was my final stamp with them. It was like a marriage made in heaven for me. On the opening night one of the acts got me up on stage to sing with them, and naturally I obliged!
“Then the Managing Director of Leonardos and Jurys hotels at the time was a previous boss of mine and asked me to look after The Thistle. I initially said no chance because it needed a lot of investment, but he persuaded me by telling me they were refurbishing it and rebranding it.
“The job at The Thistle brought me back to Glasgow in 2016 and I came in at the tail end of the refurbishment and the start of the rebrand to the Hilton. The hotel had had so many names and that was part of the challenge. When I joined the hotel, which has the biggest ballroom in Scotland, I remember saying to my MD at the time I know Glasgow, but I don’t know how to manage a ballroom of that size. My biggest function suite to date had catered for 80 people, not 1100. I suppose it is a testament to their confidence in me that they thought I would be able to do it.
“When it came to the staff, I had to put a face on and pretend that I knew what I was talking about. I felt a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. But I surrounded myself with people who were better than me at doing it. I did know to how manage people, although it took me a couple of years to get the team the way I wanted it.
“I also managed to add four rooms on by changing the configuration behind the leisure suite which took us to 304 rooms.
“The Hilton did a lot for me in terms of teaching me loads. It also made me realise I knew what I was doing. When I joined the hotel I remember someone saying to me that I had gone from steering a ship to trying to turn a tanker – and at times that is what it felt like. I like to think I learned patience there.
“With most hotels it is about the rooms but our ballroom brought us rooms and my learning process with the ballroom meant I had to learn to be more strategic and I wasn’t able to be as hands on as I would have liked. At times that would really frustrate me. During the pandemic he was also in charge there during that time he saw his team shrink from 376 staff to 9. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, in fact Craig liked being back at the coal face.
He told me, “I really enjoyed the part when we were the people who were having to book people in. We had to do everything. It was crazy.” Craig saw the hotel through pandemic and back to normality and then an opportunity came up he couldn’t refuse. He tells me,
“I wanted a change and to do something a bit different. Over the last few years I had worked across the portfolio of hotels and I had enjoyed that too. However, I had done big events, and I didn’t want to be known for that. I wanted to do something a bit different.”
The AC Marriot at the new Love Loan quarter in Glasgow was a fresh opportunity and Craig loved what owners the Chris Stewart Group were planning. He says, “I initially spoke with Grant Mckenzie, Operations Director for the Chris Stewart Group, and Louisa Green of hotel management company RBH. It sounded exciting and I liked the idea that I would be able to walk past this hotel with my grandkids and say I opened it. It would be a bit of a legacy.”
He continues, “I believe that the Love Loan quarter will be exciting once it is finished – which hopefully will be within the next 12 months.
“It will include The Collectors Hall, housed in the centre of Love Loan, which will be like a modern Ashton Lane but in the city centre. The back end where the Dome is will be an event space, which will allow us to bring more things in such as weddings and smaller events for up to 150. I can also see us doing our own events such as live music, sport, comedy and theatre. There will be another two or three restaurants, a 20-storey building and there will be student accommodation too. With Hazel, our restaurant also being on the site, it truly will become the area to go in the city centre.” When Craig joined the group the hotel was under construction. He says,
“The hotel was still under construction when I started the first week in January 2023. I had to wear a hard hat and a high viz jacket and try and see past it all including all the design issues – Heritage Scotland were right on top of it. I loved it, although the first few months were a bit lonely. I went from working with lots of people to just me on a laptop. I had to work out the timings because I didn’t want to bring people on until the right time, so for five months it was just me. But obviously I was having conversations with people.” The new hotel opened with 245 bedrooms, with 22 in the heritage building, which was the former Parish Halls building, and a restaurant called Hazel. He says, “I had the management team in place by the summer and we opened in November with 60 of our own staff. I am delighted to say that apart from the chef the opening team are all still here. This is the second AC in Scotland – it was meant to be the first but delays due to Covid meant that Inverness opened first.
“We are still working on getting across what AC means, but we also wanted to bring in the Scottish element, but not in a tacky away. The AC Marriott is not as rigid as other companies and we were able to use some suppliers we wanted, within reason. We chose to work with West Brewery to get our own Hazel IPA and also put in St Mungo, which is part of the buildings history.
“We also use Crossbill Gin which is based at the Barras, and we use a fudge company in Giffnock called Confectious as well as cakes supplied by Three Sisters Bake in Hazel.
“We use Ishga in our suites and you also get a wee Jamie Genevieve make up palate if you stay in the Liberty Suite. Other suppliers include Machina Coffee, Love and Humphries and we have partnered with Macallan in our bar.”
Craig is keen to see tourism promoted in the city and although he thinks this has been a good year, he is slightly concerned that there are no big events pencilled in for next year – although I did speak to him before Oasis announced three dates in Edinburgh, which Glasgow will get some benefit from, as with Taylor Swift, due to the rates in Edinburgh. Plus 2026 looks more promising. Although the tourism tax, he is not personally a fan of. He says,
“If the money can be used to bring more tourism to the city that would be great. But we need more clarity on how the money raised will be used. I don’t think it will have a massive impact on numbers, but it will be interesting to see how Edinburgh gets on as they are doing it first.”
A big market for the AC Marriot is production, entertainment, film, media and music and to that end he is participating in Tour Connections –The Entertainment Industry’s Tour Guide – one of which is in Nashville. He says, “We will travel to make our voice heard. It is all about getting our name out there and America and Canada are still big markets for us.”
The passion that Craig has for hospitality oozes out of him. I asked him why he loved it? He said, “In hospitality you can get a lot of opportunities and can learn by working in different departments which spur you onto bigger things. But I probably went into hospitality thinking I could travel and see some of the world and that is one of the reasons I still like it.”
He continues, “I know it is a cliché but genuinely no two days are the same. Every hotel feels like you are working with your family – they become part of your life – you share a lot with them – it can be quite emotional because you go through a lot with them, and I certainly felt that with the team at the Doubletree, although there were a lot of staff there. I like to be able to give people opportunities to succeed – people gave me opportunities and I like to pass that on. “The accountant in me loves to look at the numbers we do and the numbers we have to hit. I like working out how we will get there, and I like to bring my team with me. It gives me a real buzz.”
What also still gives him a buzz is his music and his family – he has two twins aged 25, and a daughter Freya 16 and son Cameron 12.
He may just play the sax or sing for pleasure at home, but occasionally he can be persuaded to perform at in public – for instance at the HIT Poet’s Lunch or with his mum. She was a singer, an actress and has an MBE. He tells me that one of his proudest moments was when his mum was doing a show in Edinburgh and asked him to the stage to perform with her when she sang Summertime.
I am sure he is also very proud with the progress the new AC Marriott is making. Says Craig,“I am very proud of my team – I like to see people do well.” I do too. Congrats Craig!