Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa

The Challenge Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa is more than just a hotel. The beautiful 18th century building, modern treehouse apartments, elegant spa and extensive grounds require a highly skilled team to maintain the property and deliver a smooth, discreet and highly professional service for their guests.

The entire site needed a reliable and consistent communication system that offered full signal coverage for the various teams working across the 130 acre estate. The terrain presented a few challenges, with varying elevations and some areas of dense woodland, along with large, traditional buildings, and the hotel’s more recently constructed remote treehouse apartments also needing full communication coverage.

Due to the challenges of reopening post-Covid, and the government regulations regarding social distancing, investing in a modern two-way radio system seemed an obvious choice. Their service and focus on safety needed to be second-to-none when welcoming guests back to the luxury property. Not only did the hotel need a solution to assist with their current communications challenges, but one that would provide a dependable, resilient and scalable solution for the future.

The Solution The Motorola Solutions digital solution uses a repeater base station installed in the hotel’s rooftop service area. The repeater’s antenna needed to be discreetly installed so as not to impact on the outlook of the 18th century Chewton Glen estate, yet positioned to ensure signal coverage across the entire site.

Hotel, spa and maintenance staff use a pool of Motorola hand portable radios, with personal issue discreet earpieces. PCE recommended the Motorola Solutions platform as it offers best-in-class audio, encrypted communications, voice announcement features and scalability. The battery status announcement feature means that even when using non-display radios, staff can make sure they won’t lose contact when working around the estate or escorting guests to the exclusive treehouse accommodation. Furthermore, this Motorola Solutions system allows the hotel the option of scaling up to Motorola Solutions Capacity Plus should their future needs require increased capacity.

The Result Our provision of reliable, robust and high-quality voice communication has streamlined operations. The radios are used to let reception know that a guest is about to arrive at front of house. This means the team can be notified of any requirements, and are prepared and ready to handle situations and requests in a professional and prompt manner – often having already addressed the requirement before the guest has reached the desk. Housekeeping can be alerted to specific incidents, and maintenance teams can be called to attend to issues without the need to physically find appropriate team members dispersed across the estate. Furthermore, both staff and guests feel reassured that everyone is able to adhere to social distancing measures without compromising quality and the exceptional customer service that underlies every aspect of a stay at Chewton Glen.

Raymond de Toulouse Lautrec, Front of House Manager, Chewton Glen Hotel and Spa:

“The radios provided by PCE have helped us offer a more efficient and smoother service for our guests. Our concierges, porters and receptionists no longer have to make unnecessary calls, departments are alerted to jobs quickly and the whole team is kept in the picture. Thanks to Kerry and PCE for their exceptional service.”