Batchelor’s pad

How does a man from Oz explain cricket to a Filipino? With great difficulty, I tell you.

“Well, non cricket-lovers will find the sport incredibly boring and slow (laughs),” explains David Batchelor, who was named Raffles and Fairmont Makati managing director last January. “But I appreciate the nuances of cricket. Mick Jagger loves it, so does Charlie Watts — so there must be something about the sport if those cool guys love it.” 

Cricket is one of Batchelor’s passions. He also digs Formula One racing, tennis, Australian football (he has followed Carlton Football Club since 1966 through highs and lows) and classical music. David’s wife, Marilu Toda Batchelor, was born in the Philippines, and David says he’s becoming more and more Filipino each day. “I like adobo. I like lechon kawali, which is probably my favorite thing. I like bibingka, puto bumbong and green mango salad. But I don’t like balut! (laughs).”   

Batchelor left Australia in 1992 and has been living overseas since then — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Manila. He worked for nearly 20 years for another famous hotel chain. At one point, he was the GM of the hotel’s Manila branch down the street from Raffles and Fairmont Makati, staying for seven years in our own neck of the woods. He says, “It was a very happy time for my family and me, and our experience largely drove our decision to go back and live in Manila.”    

The man currently oversees Raffles and Fairmont Makati’s overall operations with a vision to drive the performance of these two leading luxury hotels as well as provide leadership.

“It’s a great hotel brand, it has a very nice company culture — all the elements are in place.”

What was the genesis of everything? How did an Adelaide gent eventually found himself working in Manila as a hotel executive?

“When I was in my early 20s, I went on a holiday with my parents,” Batchelor shares. “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, people didn’t travel internationally all that much, so it was a different age. I made my first overseas trip in the ’80s, went to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy, France and the UK. That sort of opened my eyes to some extent.”

And being in hotels and restaurants with his parents on holiday, immersed in that sort of environment, was such an attraction for the young David.

“Prior to that, I never really imagined leaving Australia and going overseas — until that holiday. From that point onwards, I suppose, the thought of a gin and tonic on a balcony overlooking somewhere, in an Asian city, became quite attractive. And like most things, you just stumble into it. I didn’t necessarily set out to do what I’m doing, but it just happened to work that way.”

The road — from Sydney to Taipei to Hong Kong to Manila to Hong Kong — has led Batchelor back to Manila. And the hotel environment has become his arena, his cricket pitch.

“I’d like to think that I’m patient and that I have (impeccable) attention to detail — in this industry you have to make sure that’s done well,” he points out. “In (the hotel business), you need to have a sense of team. It’s a 24-hour-a-day and seven-day-a-week business. There’s never a dull moment.”

Challenges, the team has encountered a few, but the positive feedback from guests makes the job very gratifying.

“Because there’s a lot of effort in making sure that the service delivery is good. It’s a simple business on the one hand, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of coordination behind the scenes to make sure things are done effectively.”

So if Raffles and Fairmont Makati were a cricket team, Batchelor would be the captain. Of a wining team, mind you.

“I am the chief ambassador of the brand — times two. There is a great heritage associated with (Raffles and Fairmont Makati). Raffles in Singapore is one of the truly iconic hotels in a major Asian city. That hotel has a charm, a character that appeals to me. (Here in Manila,) Raffles Residences is the first of its kind operating in the world. Nice to be associated with something new: we bring the Raffles Hotel experience to the comforts of our guest’s own home. You got the heritage and the high level of service.”

Batchelor revealed that it was a trip to Singapore’s Raffles Hotel in 1980 that became a turning point in his life.

“That sowed the seeds, I suppose,” David Batchelor concludes. “My parents brought me to Long Bar, and I realized that there’s a more exciting world out there, apart from working in an accounting firm in Adelaide (laughs). It’s not necessarily better, but it suits me more.”

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For details, call Raffles Makati at 555-9777 and Fairmont Makati at 555-9888, or visit raffles.com/makati and fairmont.com/makati. Or visit the hotel’s Facebook pages — facebook.com/RafflesMakati and facebook.com/FairmontMakati.