Trump Turnberry Golf Resort
With its history dating back to 1906, the Trump Turnberry Luxury Collection golf resort was the first such resort in the world, and since the Trump organisation took over in 2014, a massive £200m investment in both the hotel and its golf courses have given it grounds to claim to be the best in the world too. AvantiGas is celebrating a decade as the resort’s main fuel supplier, an arrangement that looks set to continue for many years to come.
The challenge
When the day’s golfing is over, guests at the Trump Turnberry resort want to keep warm and snug, luxuriate in the spa centre, indulge in the finest cuisine, enjoy the heated swimming pool and explore the facilities, so many of which depend on the reliability and responsiveness of their LPG supplier. The complex had been with another LPG supplier for 25 years, “so it was a long-established relationship, but then the market became such that we felt they were unresponsive and uncompetitive,” said Trump Turnberry Director of Engineering and Safety John Cowan. John and his colleagues may have opted to switch suppliers sooner if they’d known how easy it would be, even though a large number of bulk LPG tanks had to be replaced (compulsory on switching suppliers with commercial LPG contracts). So was the LPG switch hassle-free? “It was actually pretty smooth. That had been one of the big factors for us – how much disruption was the changeover going to cause? But to be fair it was pretty seamless. We didn’t even have any downtime – the guys managed to keep us going.”
What we did
After achieving the smooth switch-over to AvantiGas bulk tanks, our engineers and drivers have continued to deliver a decade of great service and to be proactive and responsive, to ensure trouble-free maintenance and reliability of supply, while the sales team has packaged that service at a continuously competitive cost. John and his staff like the fact that they see the same drivers serving them year in, year out, while locally-based AvantiGas engineer George Rankin also gets a very honourable mention in despatches for the standard of service delivered. “They were picking things up from the start that our previous supplier had not informed us about, which could have led to us not being in a good place if things had not gone the right way.” Ten years on, AvantiGas standards have never slipped.
The results
Says John: “It’s ideal. And any challenges that we’ve had have been overcome – such as when we had a challenge in the kitchen with some pipework and the regulator after we introduced two huge gas-fired ovens.” The extra demand unbalanced the system, putting a banquet for 500 people planned for next day in jeopardy. “Of course, chefs being chefs, they are hot-headed at the best of times but knowing you’ve got a 500-head banquet on and your gas goes out, it’s not a good place for them to be.