FORMER director Asia-Pacific of Relais & Chateaux, Stéphane Junca, has gone on to establish his own hotel representation company, Secret Retreats, which will be launched in Singapore this Friday.
His partners in the new firm are Bruno Ferret, a former tour operator who sold his company, Les Ateliers du Voyages, to Kuoni in 2009, and restaurateur/hotelier Frederico Asaro.
Junca told the Daily the long-term ambition of Secret Retreats was to be “the reference in Asia for clients who seek small and independent properties which are close to the community, respect culture and traditions, and are socially responsible”.
“Yes, we know there are many organisations which represent owners, but they are either chains and the hotels are not independent, or they are global hotel repesentation companies with no speciality, i.e. too large and too genaralist,” he said.
Junca said although Secret Retreats sells members’ rooms on its website (in English, French, Japanese and Mandarin), travel agencies, tour operators and DMCs are essential business. There is a dedicated section for the trade on its website (www.secret-retreats.com/en/travel_agents/sign_in). “The trade can register here. We collect their profile and match their preferences with our properties.
“We then encourage our members to build negotiated rates in our CRS for them, and they have protected access to availability and rates through the login and password. They can get an instant confirmation, subject to availability, from any of our members, even the very small and remote ones,” Junca said.
Currently, there are 33 members in 11 Asian countries in the portfolio. These include boutique hotels, villas, camps and boats.
“We will be enlarging the spread of our destinations to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, but our aim is not to be another huge collection; we want to keep the essence of Asian culture and hospitality,” he said.
