Monthly Archives: September 2011

On assignment in Hong Kong

Liz, Gary and the team from Hollywood Hotel celebrate success in the gardens

Lycette & Associates have just completed the first of a 3 month assignment at Hong Kong Disneyland’s 2 hotels; Hollywood and Disneyland. This assignment is based on L&A’s Housekeeping Operation Review, an audit with a full report and strategic review and on going support.

L&A Associates; Gary Chan and Janine Hancox assisted the team in setting up quality control procedures to improve motivation of the housekeeping team and strengthen servicing standards in the guest rooms.

For morre information regarding Housekeeping Operational Reviews, please contact Josephine van Damme.

Hotel Icon – Hong Kong’s newest!

Hermans and Daniel

Meet Hermans Li, the Executive Housekeeper of the newly opened Hotel Icon in Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon and enjoy an overview of Hong Kong’s newest hotel. This is what Liz did when she was there on a recent trip. The soft opening of the hotel was in April 2011, with 262 guest rooms ranging in size from 36 to 80 m². The hotel is founded and owned by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the School of Hotel and Tourism management.

The 28 story complex is comprised of the Hotel Icon, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management campus, and University  House. This unique learning environment includes conference facilities, teaching restaurants, classrooms, a library and several technology labs.  The hotel is a teaching and research hotel which believes strongly in the future of Asian hospitality and provides an environment to teach and inspire the next generation of Asian hoteliers.

The hotel was designed by celebrated architects Terence Conran, Rocco Yim and William Lim. A Conran, Rocco Yim and William Lim. It has many open public spaces, a striking vertical garden by Patrick Blanc, a grand sweeping staircase and  innovative guest rooms.

Hermans along with her Assistant Executive Housekeeper, Daniel Mak showcased all areas of the hotel. The vertical garden and the lobby area is vast and is the first of its kind in Hong Kong. The impressive ballroom  features spectacular chandeliers, an interesting cleaning challenge to the housekeeping team at Hotel Icon.

the vertical garden

Challenging ballroom chandeliers!!

Challenging ballroom chandeliers!!

Room Attendant Pre-work stretches

Standing Hamstring Stretch

Lycette & Associates is delighted to present some pre-work stretches designed specifically for Room Attendants by Konekt. These exercises help the Housekeeping team to warm up all the essential muscle groups before starting the very physical task of making up rooms. They take a few minutes but are well worth the effort.

Konekt is the largest private sector provider of organisational health and risk management solutions in Australia. Their focus is on helping organisations to keep their workforce safe, minimise the impact of workplace injury, rehabilitate or redeploy injured workers, while meeting regulatory and compliance obligations.

For more information on Room Attendant Training contact Josephine

ANZPHIC conference Sydney July 2011

L&A had the opportunity to attend the ANZPHIC conference in Sydney on 18th and 19th July 2011. This meeting was a gathering for the hospitality industry, attracting attendees from all over Asia. The session began with sharing of statistics on pipeline projects in the region. Shanghai is expecting huge growth, Hong Kong looking better than previous years and Beijing also looking promising.

There are over 440,000 hotel rooms in the pipeline in the Asia Pacific region over the next 3 years. China leads the way with 56% of the new supply, followed by India with 22% of the new supply and then Thailand 5%, Indonesia 4% and Vietnam 4%.

Hotel in the pipeline projects over the next three years in the Asia Pacific region

Australia is not looking so bright, for the first time ever, outbound numbers from Australia exceeded inbound and this will go up from 6,000,000 outbound to 8,000,000 over the next 2 years. New Zealand is the biggest inbound country with 4%, this is a growth of 25% over the last year. China is up by 6%, India is also an interesting inbound market with links to education.

With the increase in Chinese visitors to Australia by 6% in 2010, the question needs to be asked “What drives the Chinese tourist?” After many surveys and studies, it was found “the experience” is considered most important. Taking photos on holiday rated highly, especially of Aussie icons and landmarks. They also rated nature and wild life is an important part of the Aussie experience. Culinary experiences are also important as status counts for Chinese who are driven by ambition, in particular eating seafood is very significant. It was interesting to note that half the travel budget for incoming Chinese travellers was spent on shopping. The philosophy still seems to be “sleep cheap, shop expensive”. China itself is booming with two thirds of internet access being via mobiles. The recent boom highlights recent statistics such as over 80% of consumers in China have made their first luxury purchase in the last seven years.

The presentation on the Ayers Rock Resort was insightful, Ray Stone talked about the Sails of the Desert and an other section of the Resort which is now 100% owned by the Indigenous Land Corporation. There are ambitious plans to set up a national Indigenous Training Academy with 500 trainees graduating over the next five years. The hope is that by 2018, 50% of the 700 employees will be indigenous.

On day two presentations were made on new lifestyle hotels such as Indigo Hotels part of the Carlson group and Andaz, the Hyatt brand reflecting personal style. These hotels allow guests to tailor their own experience incorporating affordable style and design with a strong neighbourhood story. Hypo allergenic rooms are also becoming popular in this type of hotel

The serviced apartment industry was highlighted in the second part of day two. They play an important role in industry with 24% of all rooms in Australia coming from the serviced apartment sector. 46% of serviced apartments are independently run, with 19% by Mantra, 10% held by Quest, and 9% by the Oakes Group. Interestingly, departmental profit in Australia average for hotels is 66.9% with serviced apartments running at 71.7%.

The Oakes Group has just been purchased by Anantara based in Thailand. This company has 15 properties in 8 countries.  Mr Dilip the CEO of the Minor hotel group explained the goal is to grow the Oakes group from a current 4000 keys to 6000 keys. Anantara owns prestigious properties such as Bangkok Marriott, Four Seasons Thailand and St Regis Bangkok as well as Anantara Cruises and Mandara Spas to name a few.

Dr Jerry Schwarz the new owner and CEO of the Fairmont Hunter Valley property explained the acquisition process of this property for $26 million. He talked about the current challenges of renovating and restoring the property to its former glory with an experienced manager, Mr. Heinz Colby ex Lilianfels and Hydro Majestic at the helm.

Gavin Faull & Angela Goh at ANZPHIC

Gavin Faull & Liz Lycette at ANZPHIC