Where have all the tourists gone?

GRANT Hearn has a head for heights. The man in charge of Hilton International operations in Britain and Ireland is chatting happily, even though he is balanced precariously on a wobbly stool in the rooftop garden of the company's Trafalgar Hotel.

At more than 100ft high, the garden gives a stunning view of Nelson's Column. 'It's great, isn't it,' he enthuses as his photograph is taken. That done, we retire to the bar, where the drinks list offers a bottle of Chivas Regal for £120 - £100 more than you'd pay at the supermarket. The bar is also full of glamorous young people. It is obviously a different type of Hilton - rather more 'trendy' than perhaps the traditional Hilton image?

Hearn bristles: 'Hilton isn't necessarily what you think it is. There's a market for this type of hotel and it has worked out very well for us.' It's a first for Hilton in the UK. Is it the first of many? 'Wait and see,' he says. 'We want to fill some gaps first and we're also keen on country clubs so that we can add to our golfing packages.'

You get the idea that Hearn is keen to emphasise how varied the hotels are. So what is the Hilton brand? 'We are not a Travel Inn,' he says, somewhat unhelpfully. 'But there's a consistent Hilton standard of service. We're not an emotionless brand. We really want to get across a local personality.

'People think of us as business hotels, but we want to emphasise the fact that we've got great properties for weekends and leisure too.' Getting away from the idea that Hilton 'just sells hotel beds' means putting on special event weekends, such as needlework, meeting historian David Starkey, or theatre packages.

Hearn's Hilton empire consists of 77 four and five-star hotels scattered across the British Isles, but he's keen to expand into the City and Birmingham town centre. The

Hilton Newcastle Gateshead will open next summer. Hearn, 44 this week, has worked hard at attracting more domestic visitors to fill the gap left by overseas tourists after September 11.

Figures for UK visitors are up 15% this year, largely because of people taking short breaks. 'A quarter of adults take a short break at least once a year,' says Hearn. 'That's 11.6 million people. They're not all with Hilton yet - but we're working on it.'

Hilton also played a prominent role in the Government and industry-backed 'Million Visitor' campaign, aimed at restoring the tourist industry, which saw business down about £2bn last year.

'It's important to get the tourists coming into the country - full stop,' says Hearn. 'Then you can worry about who they're going to be staying with, us or our competitors.'

Outside London, in cities such as Edinburgh and Cardiff, Hilton's meetings and conference businesses have held up well, though they cannot compensate for the effects of the US downturn. But Hearn expresses cautious optimism-Things should pick up in the final quarter of this year, but we won't be back to the levels we saw before foot-and-mouth for a while.'

Hearn has been with Hilton for just over two years. He spent five years at Whitbread - three with Marriot and two at Travel Inn - and before that 14 years with Forte, leaving six months before the Granada takeover.

And he is well-connected. His father and cousin were Forte directors. Is that why he went there? 'I'd have to say yes,' he concedes. 'But I could have got there without that. At my college, everybody went to Forte in their final year.'

He lists his achievements at Hilton as 'building a great team, creating a business plan and cascading that through every hotel.'

Managers are on bonus schemes related to profits and 'scorecards', a rather complex way of measuring customer and employee satisfaction-that includes 'mystery sleepers and shoppers' and 'traffic lights' - 'We're on amber at the moment as we're within our targets,' he says.

Hearn avoids discussing the future of Ladbrokes, Hilton's betting shop subsidiary. But what about putting it into Hilton hotels? 'We think it's a great idea and could regenerate seaside towns,' he says. 'This is something that should get urgent support from the Government. Why shouldn't Blackpool be just like Las Vegas?'

Ah yes, the Government. 'The industry has got to have representation at a higher level,' Hearn says. 'It employs more than two million people and created one in five jobs last year, but the truth is that the UK has been losing its market share of worldwide tourism over the past decade.

'One of the reasons we don't get more government help is that we have grown despite not getting a lot of help from anyone. So the feeling is, ''You're growing anyway so you don't need help''. But we could be much bigger. We're struggling because of missed opportunities.'