Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Alexander Pichel as General Manager. Alex has transferred to Bangkok from the Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta in Indonesia where he had worked as General Manager since 2015.
After graduated with Hotel Management Degree from Hotel Institute Montreux Switzerland, Joon K. Park, a young Korean man who was born in South Korea and raised in California, the USA, is falling in love with the beautiful culture of South East Asia. Joon started his career in 1997 as an Assistant Front Office Manager, looked after two properties in Vietnam, including, Sofitel Dalat Palace and Novotel Dalat. Later, he decided to pursue his career in sales department, holding a Sales Manager position at Regional Office of Hilton Worldwide, based in Hanoi, Vietnam. His passion has been deviated to revenue and operation fields; he started his exciting career with Marriott International in 2000 and held a various positions, such as, Front Office Manager, Director of Rooms, Director of Operations, and Director of Revenue Management, total 10 years of experience under Marriott International. In 2011, Joon"s career journey has shifted to Malaysia, where he was an Executive Assistant Manager at The Pacific Sutera Hotel at Sutera Harbour Marina, Golf and Country Club. Joon then joined Novotel Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport two years later as Resident Manager. Prior joining the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel & Towers, Joon was a Project Manager and Business Analyst at AccorHotels Thailand.
John Blanco has been appointed as the General Manager of Capella Bangkok, which is scheduled to open in the last quarter of 2018. Located along the rejuvenated Chao Phraya River waterfront promenade, Capella Bangkok offers 101 rooms, suites and villas with panoramic views of Thailand"s revered river.
Asia Prestige Management Limited (APM), a driving force of change in property investment and hospitality management, announced the launch of Zazz Urban Bangkok, a 48-room green-inspired urban oasis themed boutique hotel in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand.
Move over London and New York, here comes the emerging world-class megacity, Bangkok. In five short years, the electric metro across Greater Bangkok will reach a length of 464 kilometers. This will surpass London's 402 km Tube network and New York City's subway, which is 380 km. The great promise of the East, has now become the new West. Important to the success of Bangkok being a world class city, will be the access to the three international interconnected airports: Suvarnabhumi, Don Mueang and U-Tapao. This latest report by Horwath HTL Thailand and C9 Hotelworks provides great insight into new luxury hotel and hotel residence developments that truly raise the evolving city skyline.
Mr. Wilson is a British national and a graduate of the Hotel Management and a postgraduate diploma in Law & Administration from Ulster University in United Kingdom. He has almost 30 years' hotel experience in Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Sammy Carolus has been appointed general manager of Hyatt Regency Bangkok Sukhumvit, set to open later this year on vibrant Sukhumvit Road.
CEO of Bangkok-based Absolute Hotel Services Mr. Jonathan Wigley is delighted to announce the appointment of Mr. Felipe Gotor-Schäffer as the new General Manager of the group’s 4-star Eastin Hotel Makkasan Bangkok.Felipe joins AHS from the General Manager position at the luxury Al-Bustan Village in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and has worked previously in senior management worldwide for the Hilton and Intercontinental hotel groups in a hospitality career spanning over 15 years.
CapitaLand’s wholly owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott) announces the appointment of Mr. Brian Tan as its new Country General Manager for Thailand. He will be responsible for overseeing the operations of Ascott’s properties in Thailand, which includes 11 operating properties with 7 more under development, and drive the growth of the company’s serviced residence business in the country.
Dusit International, one of Thailand's foremost hotel and property development companies, joined forces with leading consulting and services organization, HVS Asia Pacific, to co-host HVS Hotel Market Connections Bangkok – an exclusive seminar for hospitality leaders, hotel owners and developers – at Dusit Thani Bangkok, on 23 November 2017.
Best Western Hotels & Resorts continues to capitalize on Bangkok"s popularity as an international tourism destination, with the announcement of a brand new hotel at the city"s Don Mueang International Airport.
Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok is pleased to announce the appointment of Andreas Johan Magnus as Hotel Manager. Andreas has relocated to Bangkok together with his family from The Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center in China where he held the position of the Hotel Manager since 2015. Andreas is a Norwegian national and obtained his hotel management diploma and bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Institute Hotelier Cesar Ritz and from the Hotel Institute Montreux, both in Switzerland. Andrea’s native language is Norwegian but he also speaks fluent English, French, German and good command of Russian. He began his career in Norway before moving with Orient Express Hotels to New Orleans, before receiving an internal transfer to Belmond Grand Hotel Europa in St. Petersburg, Russia where he spent three years working in the Food and Beverage field. In 2011, Andreas joined the Kempinski Hotel Group, first with the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates in Dubai where he held the leadership of the food and beverage department for two years, before moving on to the Djibouti Palace Kempinski to take up the role of Executive Assistant Manager. With his experience in food and beverage roles and his sound knowledge and appreciation of the Kempinski brand, Andreas will be applying and bring his extensive expertise to the luxury hospitality segment at the Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok.
Dream Bangkok – is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Matthieu Reynaud as the hotel’s general manager. A French national with more than 20 years of extensive experience in hotel & restaurant industry.
Crave Interactive, the world leading developer of cloud-based digital guest service solutions for hotels, today announced the new luxury Lancaster Bangkok Hotel has commissioned Crave T-Mini tablets in each room to provide 5-star guest services and room controls.
Starting off October 2017 with a new face and fresh perspective, The St. Regis Bangkok welcomes Klaus Christandl, hospitality industry expert, as its new General Manager. Having amassed over 27 years of experience in the hotel industry, of which a dozen have been as a General Manager, Klaus is no stranger to The St. Regis family. He joins Bangkok’s most desirable address from Singapore’s own, at The St. Regis Singapore.
It is a fact that over the last years, we have seen a growing need for traditional revenue management (RM) to evolve from having sole emphasis in maximising revenue mainly from rooms, towards adopting a more holistic view and focusing on achieving profit maximisation across the whole organisation. The latest developments in technology and added pressure in the market have advanced RM to acquire a strategic and proactive planning role with emphasis in maximising all components of the customer journey, instead of being utilised as a short-term reactive solution. This gave birth to the idea of Total Revenue Management which should be implemented as a business philosophy and strategy as its principles take into account the entire operation. Total Revenue Management, (TRM), comprises both strategical and tactical procedures and aims to identify & optimise the customer journey. For this customer-focused role to be effective it is imperative to understand consumer behaviour and patterns before, during purchase as well as throughout the product utilisation in order to accurately identify and map demand forces with profit potential. TRM has remarkable potential and the main benefit of its application as a business strategy, is the formation of a mutual and clear vision that enables everyone to work towards adopting the right attitude and commercial approach while expanding knowledge and insights on factors that influence profit. Installing a Revenue culture, right from the start, is of outmost importance for successfully deploying TRM. A Revenue culture implies that all stakeholders have a common vision of what needs to be achieved, why, and how. By having a clear understanding of what the organisation stands for and the strategies & tactics used to reach set targets, it is easier to define standards of performance and establish expectations. Whilst not everyone will ultimately be responsible for achieving what is required, it is essential that relevant stakeholders will participate in the discussions and everyone is aware of decisions taken. This will improve cross-departmental communication, while having an overall view of the business will motivate and incite involvement that will give the team a sense of ownership. The implementation of a rigorous training program is mandatory to shape and instil the right mentality and guarantee a long term success. This will create an environment that celebrates opportunities, transparency and diversity. Moreover, the role of a Revenue Manager and its position in the organisational structure will need to be re-examined and expanded to include additional responsibilities. Beyond the analytical skills, the modern RM will also need to possess character traits such as impeccable communication, influential and leadership skills. As requirements will include focus on overall profitability, current metrics will need to be re-evaluated to reflect that. While RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) will still play an important role, TrevPAR (Total Revenue Per Available Room) will need to be established to measure overall performance, while GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room) should be adopted to measure profit. Calculating GOPPAR could prove challenging as different organisations place different cost elements before or after GOP. Therefore, a universal re-positioning in financial statements will be required for the adoption of this fundamental metric. Furthermore, to increase benefits from a TRM system, it is vital to optimise the buying process and measure total spend, consider different type of customers, their purchasing power, needs and habits. For optimum results the process of segmenting customers will need to take into account the contribution of each segment in all revenue streams as well as the cost of sale. This will provide a detailed view and understanding of who the customers are while having the knowledge of which segment is more profitable, will offer a clear insight and enable the development of the Optimum Business mix. In fact, while examining only rooms may classify a segment secondary due to less booked revenue, the contribution in ancillary products combined with how they book can make it more profitable. To facilitate the above a seamless system that enables cross-departmental sharing of data will be a key element. While the benefits of technology are undeniable, the variety of systems used in different departments may present a challenge for implementing a TRM process. System integration is required to ensure that cross departmental data processing necessities are met and total spend can be accurately mapped. A seamless system will ensure constant communication between all outlets and provide with accurate, timely and complete information for successful optimisation while enabling and supporting better management forecasts. Additionally, to proactively RM the business not only by price point but also by cost of acquisition & contribution by revenue source, it is essential to understand the unconstrained market demand. Forecasting is an essential business-planning tool that allows a view of how business is likely to perform in the future and it determines the fine-tuning of long term strategies and the deployment of short term tactics. It is one of the building blocks of Revenue Management and offers a way to plot business activities so that future demand will be met. It involves the analysis of past booking and spending patterns combined with the current and future trading in order to project a detailed outlook and in a TRM system this needs to be performed not only by market segment but also by revenue stream. Moreover, knowledge of the market and the forces that drive competition is necessary as forecasts should not only be based upon what is happening within the establishment, but needs to include external factors that can influence demand as well as the perceived value of the product. Obviously, a forecast is only as reliable as the information on which it is based and therefore a well-designed system will incorporate all the required procedures to guarantee the quality of data collection. The accuracy of forecasts will determine key decisions on strategies to adopt for revenue maximisation throughout the organisation, while the ability to anticipate demand patterns and preference requirements will facilitate the design and availability of services and products. Optimisation, another key element, compliments the forecast outcome and is the ongoing process of controlling product availability and price to ensure revenue and profit growth. In a constantly changing market place, having a thorough understanding of booking patterns, lead times and cost of distribution will enable managing demand not only by price but also by cost of acquisition & contribution by revenue centre. With demand fluctuating, optimisation aims to highlight deviations from the strategies in place and suggests corrective measures. It takes into consideration the profit elements that influence performance in all revenue streams in order to decide potential reformulation of adopted strategies. Having the right revenue culture makes optimisation easier to implement as there will be times where a sacrifice in price will need to be made for a product in one department in order to secure a piece of business that has significant profit value in another. Looking at business displacement plays an important part in the optimisation process when deciding which pieces of business to consider or decline. The process of calculating displacement will need to include cost of sale, overall revenue contribution, contribution margins for different revenue centres, past performance over considered dates as well as forecast and external factors that might be influencing demand. When considering pricing it is important to keep in mind the perceived value for money and have a thorough view of the value themarket places on the product. To achieve this, it is essential to incorporate ranking and review scores in different sources as it can be a critical decision factor for potential customers. Even though the components emphasised in this article are by no means a definitive list for a TRM system they highlight some key focus areas. And while there are still challenges in the adoption of such a business practice it is an exciting time for Revenue management. Technological advances have led to systems with enormous potential for handling the complexities of managing revenue streams due to their abilities in advanced problem solving, reasoning and perception. This will elevate the role of RM and empower it to reach its full potential whilst allowing the whole organisation to benefit from its concepts. Written by: Nicholas Tsabourakis / Managing Director at Bespoke Revenue Managemnt Katia Savoca / Revenue & Capacity Manager at Europcar
Ms. Sawanee Areephan has been appointed General Manager of Marriott Executive Apartments Mayfair Bangkok.
The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts today announced the reopening of The Athenee Hotel in Bangkok following an extensive renovation and transformation into a Luxury Collection hotel. The Athenee Hotel will offer global explorers a gateway to the inspiring history and culture of Bangkok through the lens of The Luxury Collection, a glittering ensemble of world-renowned hotels and resorts delivering unique, authentic experiences.
Kipping will be responsible for the strategic direction of sales for the brand which spans 12 countries, with a portfolio of 18 properties and a pipeline of new hotel and resort openings within the next three years in South East Asia, New Zealand, UAE, Australia, Maldives and Africa.
Thomas Singenberger has been appointed Hotel Manager of the akyra Sukhumvit Bangkok, a new 50-room hotel scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2018.