Andrew Whitaker

East meets West

You MUST have heard by now about the NEW hotel in Lytham, Mode Hotel? It’s the brain child of Andrew Whitaker and will be sister to the Boutique Hotel on the Prom in St Annes on Sea.

Over coffee, in Java, that is under the new hotel,  we chatted about his interesting background

Early Days

Andrew is as sand grown as they come being born in St Annes and from a family of hoteliers, his grandparents having a hotel in Orchard Road. Although not their first commercial venture, they had corner shops in Bradford, but saw the light and moved over the border! One of Andrew’s earliest memories is sat on Granny’s worktop while she baked cakes fresh every day.

Andrew first steps ‘in the business’ was working at various St Annes hotels since the age of 14 latterly at the Dalmeny for the Webb Family. He attended Blackpool & Fylde Courtfield House, which was at the time, THE place for catering/hospitality learning.

Initially trained as a chef but he couldn’t stand the heat….so got out of the kitchen! There followed other training but was given good advice from Mr Webb to spread his hospitality wings and ended up at the very prestigious Athenaeum Hotel in London.

After a couple of year in the Capital, and still at the tender age of 22 he moved to the Gleneagles Hotel, ultimately becoming Banqueting Manager with Events of up to 2000 guests. A move then to the Holiday Inn chain before ending up in Taiwan, when he was offered the job, he had to quickly look up where it was! When he realised its proximity to Hong Kong, and knowing he had a friend there as a friendly face and a bit of moral support he hopped on a plane and at 26 and young, free & single, found himself in a Private Business Club, which was part of a large Asian chain and that started a 25 year love affair with the Far East.

First Class Resorts

Andrew was lucky enough to work across hospitality and launch new projects in Bangkok, The Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and mostly Marina Clubs, High End Luxury Resorts and some of the biggest names in Hotels. Whilst in Beijing he met his singer/entertainer/TV presenter wife, Qidi and both their daughter Jasmyn and son Joseph were born there. Jasmyn has followed her mother’s footsteps into the entertainment industry and in fact were leaving the very next day to do some TV work in China.

You cannot live in all those places without a love of the indigenous wildlife!!!

Out of all the places that they have traveled, the family’s favourite place is Hong Kong, where they have friends and like to visit as often as they can. (I get that, as I have been a couple of times myself and it is a unique and vibrant place and the mixture of Chinese & British cultures makes for an interesting visit)

Coming ‘Home’

All this was fantastic grounding, but Andrew had an itch to work for himself and 3 years ago they bought the Mode Hotel in St Annes and it was pretty much how they wanted it to be,  a modern luxury boutique hotel in a fantastic beach front location. All well and good, but was Andrew going to rest on his laurels………..no he wasn’t!

Being aware that Lytham was very short of hotel accommodation they identified a perfect central location. The intention is for the Lytham hotel to be room only, which makes perfect sense as there is plenty of good quality cafés, bars and pubs literally on the doorstep, so as guests can eat where and when they want.

In a lovely way it takes the building back to an early use when it was ‘Mrs Pearson’s Boarding establishment and Refreshment rooms’ in the the early 1900’s

They are using local suppliers at every step of the project and will be creating additional jobs nearer the opening date (Summer 2019)

The family loving doing things together whenever they get chance, they  applied for and were accepted as contestants on Big Family Cooking Showdown Series 2 which was filmed last year and even though they didn’t win, they had tremendous fun!

If Andrew was to give advice to anyone setting off on a hospitality career, would be not to stay in one place for too long, and, make sure you have a great appreciation of Finance, Sales & Marketing and Revenue Management which are becoming as essential skills as traditional Hospitality & Customer Service these days, plus the ability to work 25 hours a day!

We wish Andrew and his family every success and a chain of Modes across the land! This has to be one of the best views though! (OK, I’m biased)

Website Hotel website HERE