Hand Picked Hotels
Hand Picked Hotels is a family-owned collection of 21 country houses and coastal resorts across the UK and Channel Islands. Founded more than two decades ago by Julia and Guy Hands, it was built on a clear vision: a luxurious and magical guest experience delivered with warmth, passion and creativity. Each hotel is celebrated for its own history, architecture and setting.
That individuality is the collection’s strength and its challenge. With every house different, the question was what the Hand Picked name itself should promise, so that wherever a guest sees it, they know the standard of experience and service to expect.
Our work
Over four years we worked with Hand Picked Hotels on what unites the collection. We began with the brand: what it stands for, how it differs and how its values should show up in the way guests are treated.
From there we turned to the experience itself. We wrote brand standards for the group and helped define the details a guest sees and touches, from amenities and bedding to uniforms. We introduced independent quality benchmarking across six hotels, giving the group a consistent measure of its guest experience for the first time.
We also worked directly with the people who deliver it. We ran nine luxury workshops for hotel, reservations, sales and head office teams, and the hotels taking part raised their benchmark scores. We then mapped the guest’s arrival from end to end and wrote operating procedures for reservations, reception, concierge and housekeeping, so that the welcome is the same warm one in every house.