Managing Resources at Cliste for the Smarter Age
Derry-born Adrian Heaney is the Group Property and Safety Manager for the Cliste Hotel Group. His role is a behind-the-scenes one in a world where so much of the focus is on the people in the building and those who visit it, rather than on the building itself.
His role is, in many ways, something of a balancing act that serves as a microcosm for the rest of the country – a process of making changes by degrees, while all the time introducing operational changes; altering how one goes about one’s work, which can often make more significant differences than people often imagine.
“My background is in engineering, construction and property development,” says Adrian, who adds that being taken on to work for the Cliste hotel group in last year was the step that brought him into the hospitality sector.
“My role initially was Group Facilities Manager. I looked after projects management, renovations… anything to do with the actual property.”
At the most interactive level with the hotel guest, Adrian’s job would include the monitoring of the visible condition of the hotel room – spotting and clearing up scuff marks on the wall, for example, so that the standard of the room meets customer expectations.
With a role that oversees the 14 hotels in the Cliste group, Adrian’s job encompasses a number of areas:
“I would look after the group maintenance budget; I’d play a part in the group energy budget. We’re currently spending over €3 million per year (down from €4 million at the height of the energy cost spike) on energy, so any savings that can be made on that are beneficial.
“I would look over and agree and try to tender out group contracts for facilities such as elevators. We’ve just agreed a group contract with two separate companies for the entire group, for example, where we’ve put in a more tailored agreement that saves us costs… previous to this, every hotel had their own lift contract in place, so by grouping them together, we saved on the contract cost – bringing it down from about €60,000 to about €48,000.”
It may sound like big money, Adrian says, but a series of supplementary agreements to the main contract means that maintenance and repairs issues are pre-agreed and result in additional savings in the region of €160,000 per annum.
Maintaining control on costs is the name of the game. Within the physical structures of the buildings that make up a hotel group, variant costs and forms of energy are in constant movement and controlling them and maintaining them is the challenge.
From the carbon emissions point of view, the Cliste Group has firmly established itself at the front of the pack and it’s a position that it doesn’t intend to lose:
“For Ireland as a whole, the aim is to get as much away fossil fuel electricity as possible,” says Adrian. “For example, our kitchen is 100% electric induction. We only use electricity for the air conditioning in the rooms. We do have gas boilers heating our hot water and air handling, but what I am planning to do – and it’s currently going through a grant process – is to put in heat pumps to remove the need for burning fossil fuel on site.”
Once that move is made, the property becomes technically carbon-neutral as it’s buying its electricity supply from the National Grid, with all of its utilities (apart from water) being carbon-neutral.
With properties that have a good roof space (such as the Hillgrove in Monaghan), the plan is to utilise it to the maximum extent possible by installing solar panels.
“I have a quotation for putting in a 350kW peak solar array,” says Adrian. “In fact, I have proposals for solar panel installation in every hotel in the group and we plan to start with Ariel House in Ballsbridge this year.”
Furthermore, he adds that this is part of a strategic five-year plan that they have committed to under the auspices of Fáilte Ireland to reduce their carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. So far, he says, they are well ahead of progress with these plans.
The biggest challenge remains in the storing of energy created by solar panels, but in the meantime, day-to-day operational changes can result in energy cost savings of between 20% and 30%.
Giving people in single-occupancy rooms a single key card, for example, means that when they leave the room, all the lights are automatically switched off.
“We also have a BMS (Building Management System) that talks directly to the PMS Property Management System), so whenever a guest checks in, the PMS tells the BMS that there’s now a guest in the room and the heat comes on in the room. Then, whenever the guest checks out, the heat goes off.”
There is even more sophisticated technology there that will fine-tune much of this kind of energy-saving activity.
“We are looking at that technology… but to retrofit them in the building would upset too many other systems, so we’re waiting until there’s more of a wireless system on so that we can retrofit these systems without being invasive.”
The expectations of guests are constantly changing, Adrian says. This is true even in five-star hotels, where client expectations have traditionally been focused solely on their own personal comfort.
“Even in five-star properties, the expectation from the guest is changing. Before, people would like to throw a big fluffy bathrobe around them and then throw it in the corner but people tend not to do those things anymore because they just think it’s a bit of a waste and they’re more conscious of it.
“We have some great programmes, such as when we hang a tag on hotel doors and if you don’t want your room cleaned, you can choose to ‘clean the planet instead of my room’ and you get rewarded with a €5 food voucher.”
The entrepreneurial spirit is a very important Cliste’s core identify, Adrian says, and it’s consistent with their hiring process – taking on people with initiative who tend to see the company as their own rather than just being an employee.
“Whenever a company like Cliste is hiring, from a corporate level, it’s always good to hire people who have a bit of an entrepreneurial background. The CEOs are entrepreneurs and most of the people in the company have that entrepreneurial spirit. They all see opportunities as to where we can progress.”
The forthcoming introduction of 60 EV charging stations came about as an example of just that kind of forward-thinking spirit. It’s a good service to offer their guests who are staying over and it’s also a service that brings in customers who can call for a coffee or a lunch meeting while their car is getting topped up.
Adrian also underlines the importance of the need for continued Government assistance with many of the advances in sustainability that Cliste is making.
“We do need, preferably better grants and incentives to put in solar panels, to put in heat pumps, to put in bio-mass boilers… we need that back in order to drive it on.”
As an example, Adrian mentions an idea that they had for harvesting rainwater at their Radisson Blu hotel in Sligo. Without some additional government incentive, the scheme didn’t make any economic sense, so it didn’t progress.
“Cliste to me is pioneering smart hospitality. Everything that is dynamic, Cliste is on it. We’re 100% on board for new ideas… We actually have an Innovation Team within the company where you can submit your ideas and those ideas are considered and talked about. There’s a fund that allows ideas to be tested and piloted and, if they’re good enough, they can be rolled out.
“There aren’t many companies in the hospitality sector that have an innovation team. Its director is David Jordan and it’s a fantastic resource.”
Cliste continues to make impressive inroads on their own journey of sustainability, always striving to continue leading from the front. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that their name means ‘clever’. These days, all good things certainly come to the clever and resourceful.
