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Speaking at the HICAP “Small is Beautiful – Operator/ Branding Alternatives to the Big Chains” session, Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s Senior Vice President of Development Eric Levy highlighted how the Group’s modest size translates into flexibility and agility in offering solutions to individual properties and its owners.
“Our size and consequent shortened lines of communications has great significance to how we interact and work with our hotel owners; it’s not about whether you can speak to the CEO, but when you can speak with the CEO,” said Eric Levy. “We are able to offer focused and customized solutions for each property and issue, instead of offering formulas and templates.”
Looking Inward to Grow Outwards
Pan Pacific Hotel Group’s Vice President of Operations Dennis Wright spoke at the workshop “How to Manage Asset Profitability by Maximizing Revenue during Volatile Times’” and he stressed the need for hotel operators to relook at their property and competitive set as a guest, instead of as a hotelier. “By identifying key guest expectations and then taking the necessary steps to exceed them in quantifiable areas, you will effectively gain customer loyalty to your brand,” said Dennis Wright. “Step out of the box and look inside; in times like these, building strong brands requires us to exceed customer expectations, not compromise them.”
Turning Tough Times into Opportunity
This year marks an important chapter of the Group’s growth. Integrating both the Pan Pacific and PARKROYAL brands under the new company in April this year, Pan Pacific Hotels Group has also invested in its brands with the appointment of global brand strategists Interbrand to conduct a brand review on both the Pan Pacific and PARKROYAL brands. Now recently concluded, the review aims to refresh the value propositions of the two brands to prime them for future growth.
Recent Growth
In August this year, the Group opened Pan Pacific Xiamen while Pan Pacific Suzhou will open on January 11, 2010. A brand new hotel in Tianjin is also scheduled for completion in 2012. In addition, Pan Pacific Serviced Suites Bangkok is due to launch in January 2010 and that will follow with the opening of PARKROYAL Serviced Suites Kuala Lumpur in May 2010.
These moves mark the Group’s efforts in realizing its growth strategy, focused on expanding its hotel portfolio aggressively in the key markets of China, Southeast Asia, North America and Australia.
Award Winning Properties
In addition to the Conde Nast Traveler magazine accolades for several of the Group’s properties (including: Pan Pacific Manila, Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre, Pan Pacific Whistler Mountainside, Pan Pacific Vancouver and Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows) this year, Pan Pacific Hotels Group continues to win top honors in the World Travel Awards as well. The annual travel awards program recognizes the best in the industry and is hailed as the ‘Oscars’ of the global travel and tourism industry. This year, 183,000 travel professionals in over 160 countries worldwide participated in the voting process to decide the “best of the best” in travel and Pan Pacific Kuala Lumpur International Airport was named “Asia’s Leading Airport Hotel” and the “World’s Leading Airport Hotel” for a second consecutive year. In addition, Pan Pacific Singapore was recognized as “Asia’s Leading Business Hotel” for the fourth consecutive year and “World’s Leading Business Hotel” for the third year running.
Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts also came in tops in two consecutive quarters (Q2 and Q3 2009) for customer satisfaction as measured by Market Metrix’s Hospitality Index beating out leading hotel brands such as Mandarin Oriental, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton in the luxury segment. The Market Metrix Hospitality Index is the most in-depth measure of customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry and is based on 35,000 customer surveys conducted each quarter. Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts was also overall winner in the luxury segment for 2008.
Tatiana is the news co-ordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy. She holds a Bachelor degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
