Irishman in Atlanta: ‘Working in hotels seemed a hell of a lot nicer than being a farmer’

Peter Clarke knew he wanted to get into the hotel business when he was 12 years old.

Clarke, now the vice-president of luxury and lifestyle hotel operations across the US for Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG), one of the world’s largest hotel groups, grew up as the youngest of six on a family farm in the village of Dromin in Louth. He remembers an afternoon when his family of eight piled into the car and went out to lunch to celebrate his sister’s Confirmation.

“We went to a hotel, and I was watching everybody walk across the floor in suits, and it was pouring rain outside and it just seemed a hell of a lot nicer than being a farmer. I think I decided right then and there that I might go into the hotel business,” he says.

Aged 15 he decided to get some work experience. He wrote to 200 hotels across the State. He got just one positive reply, from a hotel in Donegal, and went to work there for a summer.

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“I worked there for the summer doing everything and anything that was assigned to me. It was a really good first-hand experience of what hospitality and hotel life would be like. I tried it, and I wanted to do it. That was it,” he says.

It was the energy and variety of the business that grabbed him from an early age. “It’s an industry that doesn’t take itself too seriously; it is fun, especially when you’re serving events, and people are out having a good time. You feel the energy and you’re grabbed into that positive energy. You’re always communicating and talking to people. They’re telling you stories, you’re telling them stories, and it’s a very engaging way to work.”

My mother said: ‘Have you ever even seen a computer?’ She was convinced they were just a fad, and that nobody really had them

—  Peter Clarke

When CAO offers came out in the early 1990s, Clarke missed out on his first choice to study hotel and catering management at DIT Cathal Brugha Street, and was about to take up his second choice of computer science in Galway.

“My mother said: ‘Have you ever even seen a computer?’ She was convinced they were just a fad, and that nobody really had them,” he says, laughing.

“Second round offers came out a few days later, and I got Cathal Brugha Street. I didn’t do computers, and it turns out they weren’t a fad, but I’m delighted I went to Cathal Brugha Street and I wouldn’t change it.”

During a college summer working in Jersey, Clarke got one of his first breaks as he walked into a hotel, CV in hand, just as the staff sommelier fell down in the restaurant due to a hernia.

“I was sitting there just waiting as the ambulance came, and the owner came up and asked what I was doing there,” he says. “I said to apply for a job. He looked at me and asked if I knew anything about wines ... I went straight back into town, got a wine book for dummies and got the job working as a sommelier the entire summer; it was fabulous.”

Since graduating, Clarke has gone on to travel the world through the hotel business, working in London, San Francisco, Washington DC, Bali, Bangkok, Shanghai and Budapest, for IHG as well as Jurys Inn Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and the Shangri-La Hotel Group.

It wasn’t always easy travelling the world, he says, sometimes living in the hotels he worked at with his wife, two young boys and golden retriever.

“It’s not as fun as you think when you’re taking the elevator home every day, but it still was not bad,” he says.

Go wherever you’re asked to go. Take yourself out of your comfort zone or let someone take you out of your comfort zone on a regular basis

He now lives in Atlanta and works as vice-president of lifestyle and luxury hotels in the US for IHG, overseeing 80 hotels. He enjoys supporting general managers to solve problems and grow their own careers, as well as the lifestyle outside of work.

“Life in Atlanta is great. The winters are mild, so when I am here and I’m not travelling, you can get out and about and do a lot more. Atlanta is known as the city in the forest, so it’s very green and hilly. I like to get out and cycle, or take my two dogs out for a walk,” he says.

His advice for aspiring hoteliers, particularly with itchy feet? Try to get in the door at international hotel groups, and do not be afraid to take the leap with roles in more far-flung places.

“It’s a great way to kick off that international career, with a company that’s truly international [and] that gives you the opportunity to move,” he says.

“Go wherever you’re asked to go. Take yourself out of your comfort zone or let someone take you out of your comfort zone on a regular basis, because that’s really where you’re going to see what your true limits are.”