Visitor Services Host

HOSPITALFIELD

Dedicated to contemporary art and ideas,
Hospitalfield is a place to work, study, learn, visit and enjoy.

**Contract**: Part Time/Seasonal

**Hours**: April to October: 2 days per week during Thurs to Sun, 10am to 4pm

**Salary**: National Living Wage

**Reporting to**: Kelly Bennett, Hospitality Manager

Hospitalfield is seeking a Visitor Services Host to play a welcoming role at the entrance to the Walled Garden at Hospitalfield House. This is an important role as you will be the first welcome to all our visitors to the Gardens, Café and House.

This is an exciting time to join the team at Hospitalfield House as we reopen our visitor facilities for the coming season, and we wish to appoint a friendly and enthusiastic person to greet visitors and to promote access to our public programme. You will join a supportive team who will help you find your way into the role with ease.

**Roles & Responsibilities**:
**Responsibilities**
- Selling and supplying tickets for the Walled Garden and Fernery efficiently
- Checking in visitors who have booked online in advance for Garden Tours and House Tours
- Providing information about the site and answering for visitors. This will include general information relating to Hospitalfield and some historical and programming information
- Managing a point of sale for Tickets and Plants Sales, processing payments via cash and card
- Key-holder responsibility
- Responsible data and evaluation collection

**Person Specification**
- You will be an excellent communicator, providing the first point of contact for all visitors, with the ability to make everyone feel welcome and well orientated
- You will have the ability to remain calm under pressure and to manage multiple priorities
- You will be able to be solution focussed with a willingness to solve problems
- You will be able to promote and encourage ticket sales by gaining an enthusiastic knowledge of the visitor offer at Hospitalfield

**Skills & Experience**

**Essential**
- Excellent communications skills
- IT literacy: full training will be provided in our online ticketing platform, however a basic knowledge and confidence in using online platforms is required
- Ability and willingness to learn about the history and heritage of the house and the other activity in general terms to communicate this to visitors
- Numeracy: this is a cash handling role and some prior experience in this regard would be advantageous
- Flexibility

**Desirable**
- Interest and knowledge of the tourism sector locally

**To Apply**

**Equalities**

In alignment with our Equalities policy, Hospitalfield recognises the great benefits in having a diverse workforce with different backgrounds and lived experiences. We are committed to providing a welcoming environment for everyone, regardless of gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, or religion or belief. In recognition and reflection of this, we would like applicants to bring diverse perspectives to the organisation so particularly invite notes of interest from those who are underrepresented in the arts and charity sectors.

**Notes on Hospitalfield and the Future Plan**

The original medieval building on the site at Hospitalfield was established in the 13th century by the same Benedictine order of Monks who built the vast Arbroath Abbey. It was intended as a place of hospitality and later became a monastery. This was a place of generous hosting, where food was harvested from the gardens, cooked in the kitchens and the visiting pilgrims, many who had travelled great distances, were made to feel nourished and welcome. Whilst there is little evidence remaining of the architecture from this time, if we look at the grandeur of the Abbey, we can assume that the monks would have designed their place of hospitality with a similar ambition to this extraordinary early Christian building. The house standing on the site today is the extraordinary 19th century Arts &Crafts house designed by the artist Patrick Allan Fraser. On his death in 1890 he left his property and estate in trust to support artists. In 1902 Hospitalfield opened as one of Scotland’s first art schools. Today we run the house and estate as one of Scotland’s most important cultural hubs for artists and visitors. We have a residential programme for contemporary artists, writers, film makers, students and more, supported in our current accommodation of 13 bedrooms. Building our venue hire and catering business is a high priority as we meet the demands of a business plan that will guide the future of the Trust. Hospitalfield’s Future Plan includes an £11m investment into the development of the estate. The opening of the café and gardens represented the completion of the first of 3 phases, with the restoration of the original artists studios and the building of a new digital studio marking stage 2.

**Job Types**: Part-time, Temporary contract
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