Okura Hotels & Resorts has appointed Jan Marshall as general manager of the 170-room Hotel Okura Manila, which is slated to open in 1Q2019 within the Manila Resorts World complex.
Marshall is a managing executive officer of Okura Nikko Hotel management, having spent more than 15 years with the group. Previously, he served as general manager of Hotel Nikko Osaka. He also has spent time as general manager of Sofitel Tokyo and director of operations for Accor Japan.
He has accumulated broad working experience throughout the US and Asia, where he spent the last 20 years of his career. His postings include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Manila, Sydney, Bali, Jakarta, Tokyo and Osaka.
The Anam in Vietnam has welcomed two new F&B recruits – Ye Chang Sheng as executive chef, and Vu Thi Huong Giang as director of F&B.
After receiving two diplomas in international hotel management and professional cooking, Ye, a Chinese national, embarked on his career a decade ago as a chef de partie with Radisson Blu in Sandton Johannesburg, South Africa. He quickly rose up the ranks in a career that has seen him heat up the frying pan for luxury hotel brands including InterContinental and Hilton in South Africa and Seychelles.
From left:Y e Chang Sheng, and Vu Thi Huong Giang
Prior to joining The Anam, Ye helmed the kitchen at nearby Mia Resort Nha Trang as executive chef for two years.
Meanwhile, Vu Thi Huong Giang holds a major in food processing. The Vietnamese started her her career in 2004 as a waitress at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay, where she steadily climbed the ladder over a decade to become a F&B manager. She has also worked for Vinpearl Land and Mia Resort in Nha Trang.
W Hotels Worldwide, part of Marriott International, has opened the doors to W Kuala Lumpur, the brand’s first-ever hotel in Malaysia.
W Kuala Lumpur features 150 guestrooms and suites, including two Wow suites and the Extreme Wow Suite, measuring over 520m2.
F&B concepts include Yen, which offers contemporary Cantonese cuisine and fresh seafood; all-day dining restaurant Flock, where chefs serve up Australian, farm-to-flock dishes out of an open kitchen; Woobar; and the Wet Deck pool bar. The hotel will also offer two privately-managed dining and entertainment venues including Saint Pierre, a 70-seat French eatery that has earned a Michelin star at its Singapore location, and Wicked, a VIP club.
For events, there is over 1,500m2 of function space, most of which belongs to the 1,000m2 Great Room.
Lastly, recreational facilities include a 1,100m2 spa with five treatment rooms, gym, an outdoor pool, and a beauty house for manicures, pedicures and the like.
Cambodia’s growing range of products and greater affordability are making the country an attractive destination for the region’s business events market.
Esther Ng, liaison director of Singapore-based Networks Synergy International, said clients are searching for new destinations to host meetings and events, and Cambodia’s affordability in comparison to South-east Asia’s major business events destinations, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, is planting the country on the radar.
Pacific Hotel Siem Reap
Ng said: “There’s a lot more interest in Cambodia. With some products, there is a big price difference too, of up to 40 per cent, compared with other countries, and there are many new hotels being built for the market.”
This is a trend that Chatora Ath, general manager of Kilat Events, has noticed. She said for many regional companies, Cambodia is ticking all the right boxes, adding she has seen a rise in bookings from businesses based in Singapore and Malaysia.
Ath added: “Cambodia is much more affordable than other popular countries, like Singapore, and today, Cambodia has a lot more accommodation to offer at more affordable prices than Vietnam and Thailand.”
The surge in corporate interest has led to a rise in hotels catering to the sector. Pacific Hotel in Siem Reap, for example, is constructing a conference centre for up to 1,200 pax to add to its current business facilities. It is slated to open before 2019.
Rudy A Cagang Jr, the hotel’s operations manager, noted a rise in enquiries from India and Singapore. “Cambodia’s affordability definitely plays a part in this,” he said.
Coupled with the country’s lower price points is its growing products and quality of facilities. A flurry of international hotel brands like Rosewood have entered and are entering the market, bringing with them new meeting and conference spaces, and more quality production companies and entertainers are helping to bolster the market.
Sinan Thourn, chairman of B2B Cambodia, opined: “Affordability is playing a role in attracting more regional companies. It makes us competitive, especially now when we can offer the same quality of facilities and accommodation as other destinations.”
The Korea Tourism Organization Singapore office is introducing an event planning course designed for in-house corporate event planners, aimed at arming participants with in-depth knowledge on the destination and event trends, as well as basic need-to-knows such as tour prices and meal plans.
The first Korea MICE Workshop Basic 101, to be held on September 11 at the Korea Plaza, is offered free to qualified corporate planners.
Korea Tourism Organization Singapore office is adding to its training courses for MICE agents with a corporate planners’ edition
Caitrin Moh, senior MICE manager of the Korea Tourism Organization Singapore office, said the course was created in response to ongoing feedback from corporate clients that “South Korea is a boring and expensive country for business events”.
Moh explained: “Such perceptions are due to a lack of resources in the market for their reference (which forces them to) depend greatly on their appointed intermediaries to come up with (programme) recommendations.
“Unfortunately, there are too many products (in South Korea) for the intermediaries to digest, and (event) trends are always changing. As a result, intermediaries may not have a deep understanding of South Korea and end up recommending a programme that does not answer the needs of the client. They may also choose to stick to safe, tried-and-tested products that are no longer as exciting.”
The course will cover three key areas: general information on South Korea (such as accessibility and weather); common blind spots (such as reasons for differences in tour prices); and trending and unique experiences for corporate events.
The Singapore office has also been trying to improve the quality of destination programming on the intermediary side through similar courses since late 2011. Held twice a year, once in March/April, and the other in August/September, these courses are offered free to outbound travel agents.
Moh expects the first corporate-facing course to attract at least 20 participants.
“We plan on keeping the session small and intimate so that we can focus on guiding each and every participant, and to identify areas of the course which we can improve on for future editions,” she said.
As to when the next corporate course would be offered, Moh said it would depend on demand and how the first edition fares.
The Malaysia International Trade & Exhibition Centre (MITEC) has taken event engagement to the next level with the unveiling of its immersive Virtual Reality (VR) experience.
The VR-based app will bring MITEC’s venues to life with a 360-degree view, presented through a special headset device utilising the latest standalone VR, Oculus Go with improved visual clarity, comfort, quality audio and a built-in software. MITEC plans to use this technology at tradeshows, roadshows and sales calls.
MITEC can now be explored virtually and event planners can visualise how their event will look like
The Oculus Go rises above the various competitors in the mobile VR category because for the first time, it allows both Android and iOS users run VR content as it does not need to be paired with either a mobile phone or be tethered to a PC.
The VR headset allows the entire 45,000m2 venue to be explored virtually and also provide users with an interactive navigation to get a feel for nearby attractions and amenities. For instance, meeting planners can expand the immersive experience to also discover Kuala Lumpur city.
Gunther Beissel, CEO of MITEC, concluded: “When it comes to planning events, organisers can view virtual experiences of exhibition halls and the venue’s capacity to get a life-like idea of their event at MITEC will be like.”
Travel commerce platform Travelport, and its technology partner, IBM have introduced the IBM Travel Manager, an industry-first AI platform designed to help businesses manage corporate travel spend.
Delivered via the IBM Cloud, the platform uses IBM Watson capabilities to track, manage, predict and analyse travel costs in one place.
A screenshot from the AI platform
The new platform features advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and provides cognitive computing, predictive data analytics using “what-if” type scenarios, and integrated travel and expense data to help travel management teams, procurement category managers, business units, finance and human resource departments optimise their travel programme, control spend and enhance the end-traveller experience.
“IBM and Travelport are using the power of AI to unlock previously unavailable insights from multiple internal and external data sources. Travel managers can use this information to proactively drive improved supplier negotiations via real time and holistic data, enable budget holders to understand and change spending patterns, and improve travel policy compliance monitoring,” said Elizabeth Pollock, IBM industry client leader for travel & transportation.
IBM Travel Manager features an interactive dashboard that offers end-to-end visibility of travel spending, the ability to create alerts and notifications, predictive and pre-defined spending trend analysis, and natural language understanding to analyse text and uncover insights from structured and unstructured data.
The product is expected to be commercially available to customers, through both IBM and Travelport.
The much-anticipated Waldorf Astoria Bangkok officially opened its doors yesterday, the latest in a growing swathe of luxury hotels that have launched or launching soon in the Thai capital to tap the country’s robust inbound tourism sector.
The first Waldorf Astoria in South-east Asia and the fourth in Asia-Pacific – after Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu in China – the new hotel is the fruit of Hilton’s partnership with Magnolia Quality Development Corporation (MQDC), which is the property development arm of Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand conglomerate.
The hotel towers over neighbouring buildings in Bangkok’s Ratchadamri
MQDC’s CEO Visit Malaisirirat, speaking at the press conference yesterday, said the alliance marks “an important strategic move into ultra-luxury hospitality for the Thai property developer, which recently announced another mixed-use development in Bangkok’s Bangna district.
“We have been looking for flagships in South-east Asia for some time,” commented Alan Watts, Asia-Pacific president of Hilton. “Bangkok is one of the most competitive markets in Asia, and Waldorf Astoria will redefine luxury not only for Bangkok but also South-east Asia.”
But Waldorf Astoria is not the only luxury hotel brand that has come knocking on Bangkok’s doors. Even within its prominent Ratchadamri location, Waldorf Astoria Bangkok already calls The St Regis Bangkok its immediate neighbours, while the recently opened Park Hyatt Bangkok and Rosewood Bangkok (opening 2019) – both of which stand less than a kilometer away – are a constant reminder of the level of competition crowding Bangkok’s luxury hotel market, not to mention upcoming hotels like Capella Bangkok (4Q2018) and Four Seasons Bangkok at Chao Phraya River (2019).
Hilton is, however, maintaining “an extremely bullish outlook” on Thailand, including the luxury segment, vice president, operations, luxury Asia-Pacific Daniel Welk told TTGmice. “Look at the number of arrivals coming into Bangkok, which hit 35 million last year and is expected to reach 38 to 39 million this year,” he said. The city itself is dynamic and offers amazing products, and the infrastructure is improving.”
Deluxe Bedroom
And if anything that growing competition has brought, it’s greater clarity for Hilton’s hotel brands, Welk stated. “The swim lanes are more defined now,” he said. “(Waldorf Astoria Bangkok) is Hilton’s ninth hotel in Thailand, and we’re well positioned to absorbed any new competition the market will bring.”
After Bangkok, Hilton has another three additional Waldorf Astoria hotels in the pipeline for Asia – the Maldives (opening February 2019), Bali and Jarkarta (both opening 2020).
Asia overall is a region of strong growth for Hilton’s luxury brands, revealed Martin Rinck, global head, luxury & lifestyle group. There are some 35 Conrad properties worldwide, and 12 out of 18 currently under development are located in Asia.
Canopy, the new lifestyle brand launched in 2017, is now Hilton’s “fastest-growing brand with 30 under development and Chengdu will be the first city in Asia to welcome the brand this year.
A new luxury brand, LXR, will debut this year-end as Hilton’s collection of independently established properties with their own identities.
CapitaLand’s group chief investment officer Lee Chee Koon will become president & group CEO from September 15, taking over from Lim Ming Yan who gave notice to retire earlier this year.
Lim will continue to serve as a board director for the company until December 31, 2018.
Lee Chee Koon
Lee first joined the company in February 2007 and has held several appointments within the group, including as CEO of Ascott, CapitaLand’s wholly owned serviced residence business.
Before joining Ascott in July 2009 as managing director for China, Lee was vice president in the office of the president at CapitaLand. Prior to joining CapitaLand in February 2007, he held appointments in various ministries such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Finance and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Meanwhile, CapitaLand has appointed group COO of CapitaLand Group Jason Leow Juan Thong as president (Asia & retail) and CEO of CapitaLand China Lucas Loh Jen Yuh as president (China & investment management), effective September 15.
In his new role, Leow will look into growing the Group’s presence in Asia (excluding China), including Singapore and Vietnam, as well as to expand its retail business.
Loh will be responsible for overseeong the growth of China as a core geographical market for the group, as well as the expansion of its investment management business.
Both Leow and Loh will report to Lee in their new positions.
A rendering of the upcoming St Regis Melbourne property
The St Regis Melbourne will rise in 2022 as the luxury brand’s first in Australia, adding to the growing crop of new hotels that are opening in the city.
Owned by Century Group Aus, this new-build hotel will be located in the luxury mixed-use precinct Flinders Bank on the corner of Spencer and Flinders Streets. Guests will also be within walking distance of Collins Street and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
A rendering of the upcoming St Regis Melbourne
The 33-storey Flinders Bank will house the St Regis Melbourne across levels two to 11 and include 168 guestrooms and suites, offering views of either the Yarra River or city skyline.
F&B offerings will include a speciality restaurant in addition to a sophisticated Drawing Room space and the St Regis Bar, which will serve up the local rendition of the brand’s signature cocktail, the Bloody Mary.
The hotel will also feature a fitness and wellness centre with a 25m indoor swimming pool, spa and beauty salon.
A polished urban retreat designed for business travellers, Hyatt Regency Kuala Lumpur at KL Midtown combines thoughtful design, seamless service, and exceptional facilities.
The five-star property excels in backing its expansive facilities with seamless service and personalised attention, setting the benchmark for luxury in Bangkok.
