Sunny comes to Sunny Sydney!

Shanghai China based Sunny Paw, Vice President Sales and Marketing of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, [pictured right with the Sydney Opera House in the background] visited Sydney this week for the first time checking out their Sydney hotel and meeting up with industry and media.

He also took the opportunity to meet with The Mole in the stunning setting of a lounge high up in the Shangri-La Sydney with Sydney Harbour set out below us and a classic Sydney blue sky above, to chat about Shangri-La and how things were going.

Shangri-La is an Asian owned brand and while they only own two hotels in Australia, in Sydney and Cairns, they do have 51 hotels in the world, are expanding rapidly with 21 in China and 15 more in the pipeline!

He said that before they had the hotel in Sydney, very few people had heard of the brand and that had helped them drive business in and out of Australia and pick up Australian guests in their hotel, as they were now a known brand and that not only speaks Shangri-La in this market, exposing the brand but also gives guests the opportunity to experience the quality and service of Shangri-La and what it really stands for.

The Mole asked Sunny what that really stood for and he said that Shangri-La stood for the very best of Asian hospitality, a caring culture and this is what makes us special is that we look at our guests with respect, care and grace and these are all time honoured Asian values, that we inculcate in our staff and that ensures that we provide the renowned Shangri-La care and service that we have become so well known for wherever we have a hotel or resort.

Sunny said that how do we do it is the key and that he was very surprised at the hotel in Sydney that on his first morning to receive a call asking if he had a good night’s stay, if everything was OK and if there was anything they could do to make his stay more comfortable and that is what Shangri-La is all about.

He said that it is important to ensure that the same quality of experience was delivered across all hotels and they must be doing something right as they are moving forward at a very fast rate, developing hotels in Europe and the US and that the service culture that is in the hotels already operating must transcend across into all hotels and for example you will find the same service and attitude in Sydney as in all other Shangri-La hotels

He also said that we look for the right people that we can hire and we hire attitude, because we believe that we can teach them skills and we know if they have the natural ability to project generosity, grace that what we are looking for.

He said there are four levels of Shangri-La Care training with Care One teaching providing service with pride not arrogance and how to be nice, Care Two teaching how to please and serve to delight customers each and every time, Care Three talking about customer loyalty and how to get repeat business, that we are all human and can make mistakes but how to recover from making mistakes, with Care Four all about ownership and how to show care to all our customers and colleagues so that we can create an environment in which staff are motivated, with reward schemes and so forth.  He said that Shangri-La believes that people want to be good and want to do well and they want to provide an environment in which they can do so.

Shangri-La also owns the vast majority of its hotels and that makes difference because they say that they are not like a Starwood, Marriott and Four Seasons who manage properties owned by someone else. 

They say that they are “in the hotel” not “on top of the hotel” therefore are able to maintain or control the quality at all times and also in these troubled times they also have many security procedures in place to ensure uncompromised safety for their guests.  Sunny said that Shangri-La believes that security and life safety is critical to ensure comfort.

In terms of Sydney the Shangri-La is the No 1 hotel in the Sydney market place in terms of market share with great revpar, high revenue and great yield, but Looking at China, Sunny said everywhere is hot with only one way to go and that is up with 8/10% GDP growth every year. 

He says that in every city you see massive growth which is expect to continue and that will also be across hotels with more business and leisure travellers visiting every day – across the board Shangri-La is running at 75% occupancy with great revenues.

He told me that you have to remember that the average city in China is 6/7million and for example Shanghai is currently 16m growing to 21m, which is amazing compared to 21 million people living in Australia!

China has about 150 to 180 million people living in cities and in a very short period of time that is estimated to become 350 million and then eventually 600 million – there are 1.3 billion people living in China today!

Sunny said that for travel agents in Australia we believe that Shangri-La is the hotel group that offers the very best facilities, the best you can find in terms of luxury and service, life safety, whether that be fire, security or even food safety, which we never compromise.

We are finding though that getting the right people and then keeping them is a big challenge and we are working on that, but we are losing people not necessarily to other hotels but to other businesses, because our staff are trained taught to speak English and so forth and businessmen poach them!  We are now creating career paths and hoping that along with good salaries this will aid retention for good people.

We also have a loyalty programme called Golden Circle which is not about loyalty to points but loyalty to the Shangri-La brand, where we recognise loyalty by that we know what you want and you get recognised, we know what you like and what you don’t and depending on the level, we provide benefits like upgrades, complimentary breakfasts, etc.

We want to let people know in Australia that Shangri-La is key brand in Asia and the world in hospitality, delivering that high quality Asian service and hospitality wherever you or your clients are and we want you to come and stay with us and experience it yourself. 

For conference organisers we even appoint a one stop shop specialist for each conference to manage all the conference needs and be the one point of contact. Also delegates can book on line and conference organisers get a mobile phone, upgrade to a suite, fax machine, etc, etc – we want to streamline and make it easy for meeting organisers to hold successful meeting in our hotels and for all our guests to have a fabulous stay whichever Shangri-La Hotel or Resort they stay in the world

Thanks you Sunny and please enjoy your stay in Sydney.

Report by The Mole