by Dr. Iain
Corness
The
principal of Inn Trouble Consultancy Thailand is a down to earth
professional in the hospitality industry, Duncan Miller. He is a man who
has world-wide experience and who joined the hospitality industry when he
was 17 because, “I needed a job, accommodation and feeding. So it was
hotels or the army, and hotels looked the best bet!”
Duncan is English, born in Leicester in the UK, but the
UK was never really his home. His father was in the British Diplomatic
Corps, and Duncan and his elder brothers were shipped off to different
areas in the world, following their father and mother. His second birthday
was held in Africa, during the Jomo Kenyatta period, and subsequent
birthdays wherever Miller Senior was placed by Her Majesty’s government.
However, for a young boy, this was an exciting lifestyle.
His schooling was also ‘international’, but the
bulk was in Hong Kong. He remembers going to school in buses with
bullet-proof mesh on the windows and the wonderment of the Chinese
children at a boy with blond hair. “I think I was the first blond child
they’d ever seen,” mused Duncan.
Academic results were not his immediate aim -
professional football was his goal (and sorry about the pun!). He trained
in Hong Kong with some of the best international football players who were
coaching in the then British colony, but in the end Duncan did not think
there was going to be much money in it, and decided against it as a
career!
By the time he was 17, the family was back in the UK,
but then father was sent to Hong Kong once more. Duncan had finished his
schooling and decided to stay in the UK, and it was then that the fateful
decision was taken - the army or the hotel industry.
Having decided upon the latter, he took the offer of
being a trainee assistant manager, graduating after a short while and then
joining the Springs Hotel in Oxfordshire. This was an interesting
‘property’ (as they say in the hospitality business), being built by
the lead singer of the Deep Purple rock band, complete with piano shaped
swimming pool. The group which managed the hotel was international, and
Duncan was sent to Bermuda for training in one of their other hotels, on
his way up their corporate ladder, to finish as resident manager there.
During this six year period at the Springs Hotel, the property was listed
as one of the best 300 hotels in the world. I suggested to Duncan that he
had done very well to have gone from a trainee assistant to resident
manager in such a short time, and asked him how. “Because I was good,”
was his laughing rejoinder. However, he did go on to explain his
philosophy. “A lot of the hospitality industry is about common sense and
personality. The ability to communicate with staff and guests.”
After six years in the UK, it was time for a move, and
for Duncan, the destination he wanted was Hong Kong. “It was almost home
to me really. I always wanted to work there.” The job opportunity on the
small island was with a European group called Jimmy’s Kitchens and he
joined them to be their general restaurant manager in Hong Kong.
After four years he wanted to move up again, but stay
in Hong Kong. The executive assistant manager in the Kowloon Pacific
Members Club was offered to him and he took it. This was an exclusive club
for the ‘Who’s Who’ of Hong Kong, with some of the best recreational
and dining facilities, and a favored haunt of people such as the film star
Jackie Chan, or the entertainer Elton John. Jackie Chan in particular
being one of Duncan’s favorite guests, “A lovely and very humble
guy,” said Duncan.
Again four years were enough and a change was needed
and he took the post as the general manager of the Aberdeen Boat Club in
Hong Kong. This was Hong Kong’s most prestigious sailing club and the
only club in Hong Kong to send a yacht to compete in the America’s Cup.
With this as the background, I expected Duncan to be a passionate sailor,
but this is not the case. “I was hired not because I wasn’t a
sailor,” said Duncan, “but because I was a professional. I think they
were rather tired of GM’s who were always sailing!”
During the next seven years he found he needed to get
away from Hong Kong for vacations. He needed a place that was the opposite
of Hong Kong, and Thailand was the venue. It was not built up; it had good
inexpensive golf courses and the beaches, and represented value for money.
During the seven years with the Aberdeen Boat Club the
colony was changing too. The long-term expats were leaving, being replaced
by short-term contractors and he could feel that it was losing its
vibrancy and excitement. The seven year itch brought him to look at
Thailand as his next home.
He used to stay at the Siam Bayshore on his vacations
here, and two years ago when he let them know that he was not going back
to Hong Kong, they exchanged his room key for a job as the resident
manager at the hotel! “You can’t turn down a resident manager job in a
four star resort in Pattaya,” said Duncan, and moved in to the hotel.
However, after many years of working for others, this
year he felt he needed to do something for himself. “It was time to take
care of my own life.”
His Thailand branch of the Inn Trouble group is, in his
words, “An opportunity to put something back into the local industry
that I have enjoyed all my life.” It is, of course, an opportunity for
local entrepreneurs to benefit from someone with all those years of
experience.
A new door is opening both for Duncan Miller, and the hospitality
industry in Pattaya.
