Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong Wins Gold Prize in Hong Kong Management Association Award of Excellence in Training 2005

Hong Kong | '555 Service Excellence', the training programme of Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong, won the gold prize of Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA) Award of Excellence in Training 2005. The Award recognizes '555 Service Excellence' as a training programme that is best executed, and clearly fulfilling a key business need in a cost effective manner.

Director of Human Resources Ivy Leung and Training Manager Eva Lo were happy with the training result and were glad to see continuous improvement in all associates. Ivy said, "The success of the training programme is that we have been accepted as part of the team. The training brought our associates and my department closer and they now take a proactive approach towards training."

'555 Service Excellence' is an innovative training which is carried out in an intensive manner. The three 5s refer to three aspects of the programme. The first 5 refers to 5 days per week training; the second 5 refers to 5+5+5=15 minutes training per day; the third 5 refers to 5 areas of customer service.

"The daily 15 minutes training is just a breakdown of a half day training in a month or a full day training with ten topics. The breakdown makes learning easier," Ivy said, "Like learning how to smile, for example. Associates learn the lesson in the morning, implement what they have learnt for the day and reinforce it for the rest of the week."

'555 Service Excellence' also aims to achieve three goals: 100% complete business target; all departments that interact with customers reach a designated Guest Services Index and over 80% of Associates Satisfaction Index. All these goals were reached within a short period of time. The most encouraging part is that no extra cost is involved in the training.

Ivy said, "It is important to be passionate for the job of training, or else, it would be impossible to achieve the mission of using 'life' to impact another 'life'."

Langham Hotels International is a dynamic, modern hospitality ownership and management company which operates a number of luxury hotels and furnished apartment properties in prime locations within Hong Kong and overseas.

Its parent company is the publicly listed Great Eagle Holdings Limited (HKSE: 41), which was founded in 1963 and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972.

The Great Eagle Group is one of Hong Kong's leading property and hotel companies. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the Group develops, invests in and manages high quality office, retail, residential and hotel properties in Hong Kong, North America and Europe. Its core commercial properties comprise 1.6 million square feet of Grade-A office space in the prime commercial districts of Hong Kong. It is also developing a 1.8 million square feet office, retail and hotel complex in the prime shopping district of Mongkok, Kowloon. The Group's extensive international hotel portfolio currently comprises seven luxury properties in six gateway cities with over 4,000 rooms.

Hotel properties owned, managed and operated by Langham Hotels International include its London flagship, the 429-room Langham Hotel, London, the 325-room Langham Hotel, Boston, the 488-room Langham Hotel, Hong Kong, the all new 665-room five-star Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong (opened in July 2004), the 387-room Langham Hotel, Melbourne in Australia, the 410-room Langham Hotel, Auckland in New Zealand, the 1,590-room Four Diamond rated Delta Chelsea Hotel, Toronto in Canada, and the 468-room superior Eaton Hotel Hong Kong.

Langham Hotels International has three properties in the prestigious "Leading Hotels of the World" family, namely, the Langham Hotel, London, the Langham Hotel, Boston and the Langham Hotel, Hong Kong. The two luxury hotels in Melbourne and Auckland will be rebranded under the Langham flag in January 2005.

Its Hong Kong portfolio also comprises three Eaton House furnished apartment buildings and two Yat Tung Heen Chinese Restaurants.

For information of Langham Place Hotel, Mongkok, Hong Kong, please visit: