We talk with the Marketing Manager of The Vale Hotel Golf and Spa Resort.

STEPHANIE METSON

You might know me as Marketing Manager of the Vale Hotel and Spa Resort but I may also have been a… I’ve always been in marketing. I was a marketing executive for the South Wales Echo in the days when papers were doing well. It was a good time then. Now I think it’s a different story. Then I went to Australia for six months and came back and started at Leekes. The best age to be is…
Forty. It’s the new thirty. We’re all feeling younger and I do try a few treatments. I swear by the collagen marine facial but then the hot stone massage is lovely.

In a nutshell my philosophy is…
Spend for today as you might not be here tomorrow!

What are your greatest challenges on a day-to-day basis?
Getting my children up, dressed, fed, washed and on the bus and getting myself in work by 8.45am.

What makes the hotel successful?
Great marketing, great facilities and great service.

What do you do in your spare time?
I like to spend it with close friends. There’s a group of us from work and we just like to go to each other’s homes for meals and we go out for meals together. With children it’s easier to go to peoples’ houses. I’ve met my friends through work.

What is the best thing about being a resort marketing manager?
The diverse marketing challenges on site. You have to put a different hat on for each area.

What is most important to your customers?
Service. Definitely service. That’s why I’m particularly proud of La Cucina. The service is fantastic and we get so much great feedback.

What plans to you have for the resort in the near future,
marketing-wise?
Huge plans. There’s building work going on at the moment and we are linking the hotel to the leisure club and building a 500 seater conference centre to be opened at the end of this year. That’s on the first floor and on the ground floor there’s going to be a large restaurant dining area to service the hotel and the leisure club.

We’re also starting work on the Hensol Castle project. Were turning that into a five star residential spa. I can’t wait... I’m so excited. It’s going to be the only one in Wales and only one of a handful in the UK.

We’ve got plans to have two, three and four bedroom apartments as well as a village of other apartments that can be used for the hotel to supplement our existing 143 bedrooms. The whole thing will be called The Hensol Castle Resort. The Vale will stay as the Vale Hotel underneath it as a four star offering and the Castle as a five star. There’s a huge lake there which will be a boating lake surrounded by open fields and trees. There will be no expense spared!

What car do you drive?
A red Audi cabriolet. That was my 40th birthday present.

Where do you eat out in the Vale?
La Cucina of course. Oscars in Cowbridge and our local, The White Lion in Ystradowen because we can wander over there with the children.

The best landmark in the Vale is?
Jenny Wren of Cowbridge!

The best day out with family in the Vale of Glamorgan is?
We come up to the Resort quite a lot. Gareth and Sean go on the driving range and Lauren and I have treatments. Lauren has a manicure and she loves that. Other than that it would be the beach at Ogmore.

You must have celebrities staying here, how do you deal with them?
We try not to treat them any differently to how we treat anyone else. We definitely give them their privacy. Staff do not approach them for autographs. We get calls from journalists asking if certain celebrities are staying and we always decline to answer.

Some celebrities bring their own security but other than that we just ask our concierges to look out for photographers and keep them at bay.

How do you mix family and work?
We bring the family here. They love it! My usual hours of work are 9 to 5.30, although I sometimes have to work a little later. Sometimes if there’s golf tournament the children come out here. One of the players at one tournament gave Sean a ball and he was so chuffed.

Once a month I have to work late, for example at a Clarins evening or a Bookers evening.

If we weren’t talking to you right now, what would you be doing?
I’d probably be at a photoshoot.

The most surprising thing that happened to you was…
Getting pregnant with Shaun. We had plans to go on a Harley all over the world!

I wish more people would take notice of…
How we treat families in restaurants.

A phrase you use far too often…
Gareth said, it should be ‘you’re not going to the pub again’!

A common misconception of you is…
That I can be seen as quite cool on the outside when there’s a warm person underneath.

If you were a politician, what would you try to change?
I would make the tour operators at holiday companies make their prices the same in school holiday times as they are the rest of the year and then we wouldn’t need to take the children out of school.

I’m very good at…
Shopping, organising and, as anybody who knows me will say, eating pretzels.

I’m very bad at …
Making cakes.

My ideal night out would be…
A good meal in a nice restaurant with close friends.

In moments of weakness I…
Turn to chocolate.

Sum yourself up in three words.
Reliable, loyal and trustworthy.

In a nutshell my philosophy is… spend for today as you might not be here tomorrow!

The Vale Hotel, Golf and Spa Resort Hensol Park, Hensol Nr Cardiff Vale of Glamorgan CF72 8JY 01443 665800 (direct line) memberships@vale-hotel.com