Disgruntled Accor staff lash out at South-east Asian chief over alleged lack of Asian leadership
A community of disgruntled Accor employees in Asia has demanded dialogue with Garth Simmons, CEO of South East Asia on what it claims to be a loss of Asian leadership across South-east Asia, Japan and South Korea following October 2020’s global restructure.
The restructure saw Accor dissolving the Asia-Pacific headquarters and replacing it with three hubs of Pacific, Greater China, and South-east Asia plus Japan and South Korea that report directly to Paris.
Identifying themselves as Many Concerned Asian Employee, the community asked for reasons as to why all key positions across Accor’s Asian properties were held by “white people” despite a headcount of 60,000 Asian staff, and claimed that responses from the South-east Asian office have been slow.
Correspondence between the community and Simmons was leaked to the press by the former.
In response, Accor has issued a press statement saying that it remains “strongly committed to diversity and inclusion” in its hiring practice.
“As part of the restructure, roles were appointed based on expertise and experience, and not on race, gender or background. We currently have 33 per cent of senior vice president or vice president roles in our management team which are held by Asians. Our goal is to increase this percentage and develop even more local talents into executive positions as our business recovers,” said an Accor spokesperson.
The statement also explained that the Covid crisis and continued travel restrictions had left the company with little choice but to release expatriate and local staff across the region.
“Tough decisions had to be made and these decisions inevitably impact people’s lives and can leave some disgruntled or unhappy employees. Throughout the process, we respected the applicable employment laws in each country. We also chose only internal candidates in order to protect as many of our people as possible.
“We appreciate that, in addition to a corporate office restructure, many people were also affected at hotel level because of decisions by hotel owners who also had to resize their teams,” it added.
While TTG Asia has reached out to Many Concerned Asian Employee for further information, a response was not available at press time on Friday evening.
Cambodia seeks to turn Kep province into tourist magnet
A master plan to develop the Kep province in Cambodia into a high-end, eco-tourism destination, covering four prime sites and 251 projects, is being drafted by the country’s tourism ministry.
Tourism minister Thong Khon was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying that the facelift is to strengthen Kep’s attractiveness and competitiveness as a luxury destination for foreign travellers, in order to help restore the industry to pre-pandemic health.
During a recent meeting presided by Thong Khon to discuss the plan, Ny Phally – ministry undersecretary of state and director of the secretariat of the inter-ministerial commission – said the four primary development areas are Kep town, Ankol beach, the Phnom Vore region, and the province’s archipelago.
Phally said under the master plan, the Kep beach will be improved upon, and the Angkol beach will be developed as a new tourist site, while the Sre Ambel salt fields will be turned into an agro-tourism destination.
“Apart from improving these coastal areas, there are many other development projects, including expansion of international sports facilities, construction of a tourist-oriented war museum and organisation of visits to the 13 islands which are rich in biodiversity like corals, sea dolphins, dugong, fish and many other rare species,” he was quoted by the report as saying.
In its draft master plan, the inter-ministerial commission outlined nine key strategies, including developing tourism resources in Kep town, creating travel corridors, and improving the quality and safety of tourism in the region.
Hyatt Regency Phnom Penh
Location
Located in the heart of the capital, Hyatt Regency Phnom Penh sits close to the capital’s main attractions, including the National Museum, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Rooms boast striking citywide panoramas that sweep across the capital and Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers.
The property melds old and new with a stunning revamped colonial villa serving as the lobby and an upstairs lounge bar against the backdrop of 10- and 14-storey contemporary towers.
Rooms
The property takes in three styles of suite and nine room options. Each feature a chic contemporary design with light spilling in through floor-to-ceiling windows. I checked in at the King Palace View Deluxe room, a 49m² space that boasts vistas of the nearby Royal Palace. It features a comfortable king bed, desk and seating area with a sofa and table. A large bathroom has a separate bath tub, rain shower and toilet.
F&B
There’s plenty of eating and drinking options. The Attic sits in the eaves of the colonial villa and makes for a stylish space to enjoy carefully-crafted cocktails and snacks. The Market Café is light and lofty and serves breakfast, a la carte options and delightful, four-course afternoon tea.
On the 14th floor sits FiveFive rooftop restaurant and bar. The chic indoor and outdoor space offers splendid views coupled with a menu of fresh seafood and meats. The Metropole Underground is slated to open in Q1 as a 20th century metro-themed bar.
Facilities
Guests can keep fit at the 24/7 fitness centre and large outdoor swimming pool, while businesses can make use of the 1,400m² of flexible meeting and conference spaces capable of accommodating up to 1,500 pax. The 10th floor Regency Club serves food and drinks throughout the day and evening, and Jivapita Spa will open in February.
Service
The property has been designed for Covid times. Hand sanitisers are dotted throughout, QR code menus are available for dining, while sealed stickers reassure that rooms and other items, such as TV remotes, have been sanitised. Temperatures are taken on arrival and staff wear masks. Additionally, the service is impeccable. Smiling staff were on hand to greet me throughout my stay and explain each dish and cocktail served.
Verdict
The hotel is an excellent addition to the capital’s upmarket offerings and is already proving popular with grounded locals and expats taking advantage of the staycation package and the capital’s latest sophisticated drinking and dining options.
Number of rooms 247
Rates
Standard rates from US$200. Staycation packages from US$157.
Contact details
Tel: +855 23 600 1234
Website: www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/cambodia/hyatt-regency-phnom-penh/pnhrp
Norwegian Cruise lets guests Take 5
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is ringing in the new year with its Take 5 offer, providing up to US$2,900 in value for a limited time.
Applicable fleetwide across all stateroom categories and destinations, NCL’s promo allows guests in Asia-Pacific to enjoy all five Free at Sea offers: a beverage package, a shore excursion credit, a specialty dining package, and a Wi-Fi package. For family or group reservations, the third and fourth guests can also sail at a reduced rate on select sailings.
A 50 per cent reduced deposit and 30 per cent off voyage total fare are also available as a combination promotion.
The Take 5 promo will also be available across the line’s forthcoming Asia-Pacific voyages onboard Norwegian Sun.
Royal Caribbean to sell Azamara brand to private equity firm
Royal Caribbean Group has reached an agreement to sell its Azamara brand to US-based private equity firm Sycamore Partners for US$201 million, as it seeks to shed assets amid the pandemic.
Expected to close in 1Q2021, the all-cash, carve-out transaction will see Sycamore Partners acquiring the cruise line’s three-ship fleet and associated intellectual property.
In a statement announcing the deal, Royal Caribbean said Azamara’s value proposition and operations “will remain consistent under the new arrangement” and it would “work in close collaboration on a seamless transition for Azamara employees, customers and other stakeholders”.
Royal Caribbean Group chairman and CEO, Richard Fain, said the company will focus its growth strategy on its three global brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea.
Minor Hotels inks pact with Funyard Hotels & Resorts, eyes expansion in China
Bangkok-based Minor Hotels has signed an MoU to form a joint venture with Funyard Hotels & Resorts, a core alliance enterprise of Country Garden Group, to expand its portfolio of brands across China.
The brands include Anantara, Avani, Oaks, Elewana, Tivoli and NH – many of which will be making their debut in mainland China.
The announcement comes at the time when the growth of China’s travel sector is expected to accelerate post-pandemic. With demand for leisure and resort services shifting from overseas to domestic, optimism about China’s tourism and resort market is at all-time high.
At the recent virtual MoU signing ceremony, Ji Hongjun, president of Funyard Hotels & Resorts, said: “The pandemic is further accelerating the process of the Chinese economy shifting towards the domestic market. This means new opportunities in domestic tourism and hospitality.” He added that the partnership seeks to “tap into the Chinese resort market and bring new energy to Chinese and even global tourism.”
New app HoteLux spices up luxury stays with elite-status perks
HoteLux, a membership-based luxury hotel reservation app with over 4,000 luxury hotel properties worldwide, has launched in Singapore.
For an annual fee of S$99 (US$75), users who book via HoteLux will be able to enjoy benefits – typically offered to travellers who book through luxury programmes – such as complimentary room upgrades, daily breakfasts, and US$100 hotel credits.
On top of that, unlike other OTAs, HoteLux awards bookers with two sets of points – HoteLux’s rewards points, and points with the respective hotel company’s own proprietary programme (i.e. Hilton Honours, Marriott Bonvoy).
For this year, HoteLux is focusing on building a strong brand in Singapore, starting with the staycation market. Currently, new users are eligible for an annual fee waiver on their first two hotel bookings.
Yihao Shi, managing director of HoteLux, explained: “People are desperate to travel, and staycations are the closest to travel they can get.”
Shi shared that since the app’s launch a few days ago, already 400 people have signed up – an indication that the app is moving in the right direction.
His aim is to build customer loyalty to earn repeat business. “In Singapore, right now, the borders are closed, but our members can make use of HoteLux to book staycations. In future, when borders reopen, and our members go to Bangkok, for example, they will think of HoteLux for their Bangkok hotel bookings,” he said.
This is built on his prediction that borders will not reopen until perhaps 2022. He added that 2022 will most likely see a “large volume of travel”, but for 2H2021, it’ll most likely be essential and business travel.
As such, from 2022 onwards, the focus will then be shifted to top inbound markets to Singapore such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and India.
When travel returns, HoteLux plans to scale up the app accordingly. Given that HoteLux’s parent company runs a similar app in the country under a different branding and name, building in more features – such as allowing restaurant and limousine bookings – into HoteLux in the future will be “easy” with the existing infrastructure.
When asked why HoteLux chose to enter the market during these uncertain times, Shi said: “Why not? No one is talking about travel now, so now is the best time to educate consumers about the brand and app.”
Covid temporarily shuts Makati Shangri-La’s doors
After nearly 30 years of operation, Makati Shangri-La Hotel in Manila will suspend operations beginning February 1, and let go off a number of staff, as part of a reorganisation exercise due to the pandemic’s financial impact.
In a statement, a Shangri-La Group spokesperson said that “the prolonged recovery timeline has resulted in increasing financial pressure on the company here in the Philippines”.
“Owing to continued low business levels and having considered all viable options over weeks of consideration and deliberation, we unfortunately must now make the extremely difficult decision to reorganise our workforce and operations in the Philippines as we continue to navigate an uncertain business environment,” read the statement.
Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the hospitality group has implemented several cost-cutting measures, including salary reductions at management level, shorter work weeks, hiring freeze and cuts in non-essential spending.
All affected employees will receive a fair compensation package that is “higher than local statutory guidelines”, as well as healthcare coverage and grocery support until the end of this year.
Shangri-La said that it would reopen Makati Shangri-La “at a later date when business conditions have improved”.
APAC destinations face uneven recovery through 2023
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has released the Executive Summary of the Asia Pacific Visitor Forecasts 2021-2023, which makes three growth prospects for international visitors arrivals (IVAs) into and across 39 Asia-Pacific destinations, covering mild, medium and severe scenarios.
The report shows that even under a mild scenario, the Asia-Pacific region in 2023 is likely to still have around four per cent fewer arrivals compared to 2019. The medium scenario suggests that foreign visitor numbers in 2023 could be only three-quarters of the 2019 volume, while under the severe scenario, that proportion is predicted to reach less than half of the 2019 volume of international arrivals.
The results are very uneven as well, not just under each scenario, but also for the major destination regions of Asia-Pacific. The Americas for example, after reaching a total of 45.36 million foreign arrivals in 2020 into the four destinations covered by this region, is unlikely to see any annual increase in IVAs until 2022.
Calendar year 2021, in particular, is projected to be another difficult year for the Americas. A further annual decline in foreign arrival numbers is expected, with annual losses ranging from 3.59 million to as much as almost 23.76 million, depending upon the scenario conditions at the time.
IVAs into and across Asia, on the other hand, are expected to show an increase in 2021 over the 70.64 million received in 2020, but only under the mild scenario. From 2022 onwards, however, annual increases are forecast to gradually improve in volume under each of the three scenarios.
The only differing characteristic is the volume of the annual increase in each case.
The Pacific is expected to be in a similar position as the Americas in 2021, with IVAs falling from the 5.85 million received in 2020 under each of the three scenarios. While that decrease may be relatively minor under the mild scenario, it could still represent a contraction of almost five million IVAs under the severe scenario.
Calendar years 2022 and 2023, however, show some return to annual growth under each of the scenarios.
The three main visitor generating regions of Asia, the Americas and Europe are likely to remain as such, in terms of the additional volume of IVAs delivered into and across Asia-Pacific between 2020 and 2023, differing only in their respective relative strengths.
Interestingly, as each scenario becomes a little more difficult and volatile, the relative proportion of IVA growth out of Asia between 2020 and 2023 becomes slightly more significant, even as the absolute numbers diminish somewhat.
However, these proportions differ significantly across the three main destination regions of Asia-Pacific.
Intra-regional traveller flows from the Americas, for example, dominate arrivals into the Americas, rising in relative significance as the scenarios become increasingly difficult and volatile.
For the destination region of Asia, it is that region itself that generates the sheer bulk of the additional IVAs into the region between 2020 and 2023, with its relative share of additional arrivals rising from around 84 per cent under the mild scenario to more than 87 per cent under the severe scenario.
Additional IVAs into the Pacific are likely to be sourced largely out of Asia and the Americas, with those two source regions combined expected to account for over 70 per cent of the increase in IVAs into this region between 2020 and 2023, under each of the scenarios.
PATA CEO Mario Hardy pointed out: “While growth in international visitor arrivals into and across Asia-Pacific remains difficult in 2021, there are promising signs for 2022 and 2023. A return to near pre-Covid-19 levels of arrivals, while possible by 2023, appears now to be feasible, at least if conditions as they are now, abate quickly and permanently. Much, however, will depend on events during this present northern winter and the arrival and management of the more traditional flu season.
“Given the speed with which conditions can change, the PATA forecast report this year does not have the same destination-specific detail as previously published in the past, but rather focuses on regions and sub-regions. They are, however, more flexible as they will be updated twice over the coming 12 months to factor in developments as and when they occur.”
Hardy concluded: “Domestic travel will, in many cases, fill some of the void left by the loss of foreign arrivals, and as much care and attention to those travellers needs to be given as to those from overseas. Furthermore, for both types of visitor, perhaps the future will depend more on length of stay and visitor satisfaction, than on a generic and simple headcount of arrivals. Metrics that track such indicators will possibly become a new standard for determining tourism potential and performance in what is likely to continue being a volatile world.”
The Executive Summary is available here.
Tour agents in Hong Kong have cast a shadow of doubt over the financial viability of the government’s multi-million-dollar plan to transform the cash-strapped Ocean Park into an entry-free, adventure-themed resort destination within the next two to three years.
The fate of the city’s iconic theme park was decided after the government and Ocean Park Corporation completed a rethink exercise to chart the way forward for the park.
Under the plan, a new non-ticketed retail, dining, and entertainment (RDE) zone is to be created at the lower park area, which will be managed by a private developer under a long-term concession agreement. The RDE zone will house public spaces to host open-air markets and events, a children’s playground and water play area. Conservation and education-related facilities and attractions, including the Grand Aquarium and the soon-to-be-completed Steam Hub, will also be integrated into the RDE zone.
In order to become financially sustainable in the long run, the park will outsource part of its park area or facilities to different operators. With that in mind, a pay-as-you-go ticketing model is also being considered, in place of the existing pay-one-price model, to help boost the park’s attendance.
Other key components of the revamp include a new adventure-themed zone which could feature outdoor attractions, such as Xraycer and Zipline; as well as new wellness-themed zones for activities such as glamping, trekking, meditation, and yoga retreats. Some 12 aged rides including Mine Train and Raging Rivers will be phased out to make way for new facilities, including a line-up of 26 new rides.
The iconic Cable Car and the Ocean Express will be retained to connect the lower park area with the upper park area, at the same time, it has been proposed for a pier to be developed in the lower park area at Deep Water Bay so that the public can access the new RDE zone by sea in future. A plan is also being mulled over for another pier to be built adjacent to the Water World in Tai Shue Wan to boost connectivity between the two areas.
Slated for a summer opening, the long-awaited Water World will be the city’s first year-round, all-weather water park featuring 27 indoor and outdoor water attractions such as a man-made beach, a surf rider, and an eight-lane mat racer. A resort-style cabana area will also provide space for dining and relaxation. Operation of this facility will be overseen by the park, at least in the short- to medium-term, to ensure its early opening.
The secretary for commerce and economic development, Edward Yau, said the park will cut down on facilities and related expenses which are not cost-effective and re-orient its development focus back to education and conservation.
He added that the park’s transformation will “take time and resources”, thereby, requiring the government’s assistance in the following areas: bearing the costs for conservation and education work of the park for four years, deferring the repayment of government loans, extending the repayment period and waiving the interest, and providing a non-recurrent funding to help the park to cope with its present financial need.
The chairman of the board of the Ocean Park Corporation, Lau Ming-wai, said: “The new model of operation enables us to improve, innovate, and invigorate the park in the exciting years ahead. Our renewed direction embodies our vision of advancing Ocean Park into Hong Kong’s leading education platform, with a strong mission to promote environmental conservation and protection. Leveraging our exceptional location and with the launch of the Water World, we are confident that Ocean Park will play a pivotal role in the Invigorating Island South initiative.”
However, industry players have casted doubt on the viability of this new business model to sustain operations of the park.
While noting that the new operating and pricing models aim to achieve business sustainability, Gray Line Tours chairman, Michael Wu, expressed uncertainty as to whether it would work. He said: “I received phone calls from agent friends asking how we can promote the park in future when the pay-one-price model is removed, and clients have to pay extra on-site for certain rides and facilities.”
Instead, he proposed for the park to retain its basic admission fee model, with chargeable optional rides, citing the example of Chimelong Paradise in Shenzhen, where visitors are charged an admission fee which includes ride access, but have to fork out extra for shows.
Wu added: “To me, the proposal looks like a major landlord subleasing space and living on rental fee. The transformation is just for the sake of survival, without any proactive initiatives. With dolphin show to go off the list, what else can it excite visitors with?”
He also raised doubts as to whether a mere focus on conservation, education and natural beauty is able to achieve breakeven. While he does contend that “the ticket-free area at lower hill will be a mecca for domestic helpers” and “the Water World is set to draw more young visitors who rarely see such scale and design in the region”, he also stressed that “in the long-term, the park needs to reinvent to stay competitive and draw repeated visitors”.
W Travel Service managing director, Wing Wong, opined that the free admission would not be enough to attract visitors. “As far as I know, the mainland Chinese aren’t keen on ocean conservation and nature protection. Under this new model, I doubt how it could generate more income if there are no new exciting ideas – those wellness ideas like yoga and glamping are only gimmicks.
“Also, although Water World is an all-year round attraction, it may face a seasonal demand issue. It may be worthwhile to make money in real estates, developing some prime spots in order to drive regular income.”
Last year, the park obtained the Legislative Council’s funding approval to support its operation for a year. Under this new move, the government will pump a maximum yearly financial assistance of HK$280 million (US$36.1 million) into Ocean Park for four financial years starting from 2022-23 to support the education and conservation initiatives in its future strategy.