10 NEWS ADVERTORIAL New Openings For Park Hotel Group Park Hotel Farrer Park - Opening Q4 2016 Growing the business with international sales offices and an expanding portfolio across Asia-Pacific Hong Kong, 1961 saw their first hotel opening, and the recent opening of Park Hotel Alexandra in Singapore sees the award-winning brand continuing to grow in 2016. Allen Law, CEO Park Hotel Group, told ITBBerlinNews about the current and future status of the company. 2015 was not without its challenges but there are certainly some bright spots. For example, our hotel in Japan, Grand Park Otaru is doing extremely well with double digit growth in RevPAR. Singapore may have experienced some weakening but still remained healthy with room demand growing at 6.4% and closing the year at 85% occupancy nationwide. We are optimistic about the tourism outlook and are excited about what’s to come this year. Looking ahead, in 2016 – we are opening Park Hotel Farrer Park in Q4. This makes it our 5th hotel in Singapore and there are definitely synergies to Allen Law Chief Executive Officer, Park Hotel Group SERVICE IS THE KEY DIFFERENTIATING FACTOR WHEN IT COMES TO PROVIDING MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES. tap on for greater benefit in economy of scale. A rebranding exercise is also in the plan. Ensuring that our brands resonate with the customers of today in different markets is important as we continue with our asset and product enhancements this year. This is critical to provide the greatest value to our customers as we embark on our vision to grow our portfolio to more than 20 hotels by 2020. How would you best describe your brand? Service is the key differentiating factor when it comes to providing memorable experiences. Regardless of differences in the culture, location or the hotel’s architecture or facilities, the quality of hospitality received should be consistent. It is our mission at Park Hotel Group to ensure guest satisfaction so that our guests take away from every experience, our brand of Loving Hospitality. As well as new hotels, you are expanding sales-wise into new territories. Could you please explain the significance of your new Sales Rep in Korea? It is important to be where our customers are, and continually expanding our global sales and distribution network to extend our reach is essential to increase brand awareness and market share. Outbound travel in Korea is expected to grow and hence having our presence in Korea was a natural progression after entering gateway cities in Asia, Australia, UK, India and the USA. With 17 global sales offices in the portfolio, it is crucial to streamline our processes and resources to remain efficient and responsive to customer needs. This also includes leveraging technology to improve the way we work and communicate with our customers. You have again received the prize as Best Regional Hotel Chain. What is the reason behind this continued success? We are indeed very grateful for the ongoing support and recognition from our partners, customers and guests. It is important to continually be relevant and desirable to our customers and to do that well, we need to constantly stay ahead of change and refine our competitive advantage. Taking good care of our customers, guests and employees and having the mindset that things can always be done better, whether it’s delivering quality service, streamlining processes and costs, reducing wastage keeps us grounded, and going. What new properties are in the pipeline? We are very excited to launch Park Hotel Nusa Dua, Bali, our first resort property in the portfolio when its hotel-wide refurbishment completes later this month. Following this is the opening of Park Hotel Farrer Park in Singapore in the last quarter of this year. In addition, we have Park Hotel Adelaide, a new-build scheduled to open in 2018. We are also in active discussion with partners to expand our footprint to other key cities in Asia Pacific. Hall 26A / Stand 106b ITB BERLIN NEWS • Saturday 12 th March 2016 www.itb-berlin-news.com
NEWS 11 The Robots Are Coming Consumers embrace role of robots in travel industry According to a global survey by Travelzoo exploring consumer acceptance of robots in the travel and tourism industry, 80% of travellers expect to come into contact with robots on their holidays by 2020, while almost twothirds said they are comfortable being served by robots in some capacity. The independent survey of more than 6,000 people in Asia, Europe, North America and South America shows that Chinese and Brazilian consumers are the most positive about robots and artificial intelligence featuring as part of their holiday experience, while British respondents were less convinced. While robots are still relatively new to the travel industry, early adopters have included large hotel chains such as Marriot International, which has a robot called Mario in a customer-facing role at the Marriot in Ghent, Belgium; or Starwood hotels, which has a butler robot; and a hotel in Japan that has Toshiba’s ‘communication android’ Chihira Aico welcoming guests. Cruise companies and airports are also starting to use robots. Richard Singer, Travelzoo’s European President, made a keynote speech on the findings at this year’s ITBBerlin, sharing the stage with Toshiba’s Chihira Kanae – one of the world’s most humanlooking robots, who made her European debut at the event. “Right now is a very exciting moment in the history of the travel industry,” said Singer, “Ground breaking technology is revolutionising what is possible from the perspective of customer service, entertainment and personalisation [while] consumer acceptance is generally high for this form of technology.” He added: “While the advent of technology such as robot butlers and bartenders is hugely exciting, Chihira Kanae, Toshiba’s robot at ITBBerlin 2016 it’s also very clear from our research that consumers from all markets surveyed believe the ideal solution for the travel industry would be robots and humans working in tandem in customer-facing roles.” Hall 25 / Stand 148 ITB BERLIN NEWS • Saturday 12 th March 2016
