VacantReady

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts is growing fast in many lucrative markets, including Asia and the Middle East.

Dubai, Shanghai, Beijing...these booming metropolitan cities are experiencing a renaissance in hotel development, and Fairmont is opening luxury hotels in all of these cities (plus countless more).

My friend Jens Thraenhart is the Executive Director of Marketing Strategy & Customer Relationship Management for the Canadian Tourism Commission headquartered in Vancouver. While at a recent speaking engagement at a conference in Singapore, Jens visited one of his former hotel colleagues for an interview.

Banff-born Ian Wilson is Fairmont’s Regional Vice President for Asia, and G.M. of the Raffles The Plaza Hotel in Singapore. He was most recently the G.M. of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

Jens tracked down Mr. Wilson at his hotel and managed to convince him to do an on-camera interview about Fairmont’s development initiatives in Asia.

This is a great interview, and it’s inspiring to see a small town Alberta boy rising to the top ranks of one of the world’s foremost luxury brands.

1 comments | Permalink | Asia • Lifestyle

While hotel employees across North America are often ‘lucky’ to get a pre-shift departmental meeting, these employees at a property in Lhasa, Tibet gather for daily calisthenics first thing in the morning.

The image is terrific (hardly military-esque precision!), but what I really like is that multiple departments are participating. Not sure who is minding the store during this time (supervisors?), but still--a great way to build some camaraderie among colleagues. Even if the staff hate participating, at least they can groan together as a unit.

I don’t think we’re quite ready for team calisthenics, but we do need to be watching for innovative ways to facilitate better health, work-life balance and team building in the stressed-out hotel industry.

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Image thanks to flickr [Mike W2007]

0 comments | Permalink | Asia • Lifestyle

Check out this terrific old-school pillbox uniform hat worn by an employee of Shanghai’s Haiyatt Hotel. And in case you are wondering, “Haiyatt” is not a mis-spelled “Hyatt”!

While this “almost Hyatt” name may or may not hold up in court as trademark infringement, there are a number of hotels in the People’s Republic of China branded “Sheraton”, or “Peninsula” etc. who are not at all part of the actual international brand. It’s a real challenge in China which has the potential to seriously erode the brand experience for many unsuspecting guests.

There is currently no central company’s register in China, so counterfeiters can legally register a brand name or trademark with one of the thousands of local company registration offices. A foreign company that owns the trademark in their own nation must then challenge the ownership in court often at great expense. There are many cases of foreign companies trying to register their internationally known brands within China, only to find that a Chinese company has beaten them to it.

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Image thanks to flickr [StevewDesign]

0 comments | Permalink | Asia • Hall of Shame

On June 19, 2007 Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts sent out a press release for the launch of their new website. With construction on Vancouver’s own Shangri-La property in full swing, we decided to head over to the new digs to see where the hotel will live, online.

Let’s premise further comments with the fact that the website cost a whopping $2M to develop (really?). Was it worth the expense? Not to my mind.

While there was nothing overtly terrible about the site, it didn’t exactly make me want to shout accolades either. The colour tones are too dark for me, and the site in general doesn’t evoke any excitement at all. The booking engine looks ok, but again, it’s uber-boring. No social media elements, community building initiatives...nothing at all other than some pictures and a link to the weather at the local regions. Wow, that’s it?

Canadian e-travel marketing guru Jens Thraenhart wrote a review on Shangri-La’s brand new corporate website yesterday and he voiced similar concerns:

“...I was hoping that Shangri-La would be able to transfer their great hotel experience online, but this seems little more than a hip (the site is designed in black), but boring Web 1.0 website, which is fine...but for $2 Million???...”

Agreed, Jens.

Take a peek for yourself and then consider asking where YOUR website budget is going!

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Shangri-La Hotels website re-design [Hotel-Online]

0 comments | Permalink | Asia • Development • Marketing

Daryl G,
Hotel Insider

To the un-initiated or ill-informed, it may sound like the name of some funky new Peruvian coffee bean, but Macau is in fact one of two special administrative regions in the Peoples Republic of China. Along with Hong Kong on the southern coast of the PRC, Macau reverted to Chinese control in 1999. Until this time it was administered by Portugal and was the oldest European colony in China, dating back to the 16th century. But enough of the history lesson for now.

Gaming, along with the tourism and hospitality industry, is estimated to contribute more than 50% of Macau’s GDP, and 70% of Macau government revenue.With the opening of the Sands Macau, the largest casino in the world as measured by total number of table games, in 2004 and Wynn Macau in 2006, gambling revenues from Macau’s casinos were, for the first time, greater than those of Las Vegas (each about $6 billion), making Macau one of the highest-volume gambling centres in the world.

Other casinos and hotels slated to be opened through 2009 are: The Venetian Macau (2007), Four Seasons (2007), MGM Grand Macau (2007), Far East Consortium Complex (2007), Grand Hyatt (2007), Galaxy Cotai Megaresort (2008) and Mandarin Oriental (2009). The first Phase of Macao’s Cotai Strip is scheduled to open in 2007 and will include 19,000 guest rooms throughout seven resort hotels, with the $1.8 billion Venetian Macao serving as the anchor. As a result, Macau’s economy is growing rapidly due to gambling related tourism and construction from the new casino entrants. Add to this an announcement from Sir Richard Branson of Virgin fame this last week, that he will be making his first venture in to the Gaming & Lodging market and is in advanced negotiations to acquire a 20-hectare site to build a $3 billion casino project which is slated for 2010.

With ferries arriving every 15 minutes from Hong Kong, it stands to reason that a majority of visitors to the area are Hong Kong locals looking to burn their hard earned cash, but this also allows visitors to Hong Kong easy access to the 2,762 available tables on the island. In 2006 the small peninsula received 12 million tourists from mainland China and 9.2 million from other parts of Asia. One interesting fact is that the number of Western visitors does not seem to be increasing, so it looks like that a lot more work needs to be done by the likes of Sheldon Adelson, James Packer and Steve Wynn to attract them to Macau. How this is going to be achieved remains to be seen, but the Macau Tourism Service said that as part of the foreign promotion of Macau’s potential, specific attention would be paid to the Russian and Middle Eastern markets. In total, 2.2 billion people live within five hours’ flying time of Macau, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, compared with only 410 million in the same radius of Las Vegas!

Is Macau going to be the next Vegas? The stats seem to be pointing in that direction but who knows. 5 years from now we might even see the likes of Celine Dion securing a permanent gig here, or dare I say it......Siegfried & Roy! What happens in Macau stays in Macau? I don’t know, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as the same adage for Vegas!

[Image via Flickr]

0 comments | Permalink | Asia