FAR East Hospitality (FEH) has relaunched the Rendezvous Hotel Singapore, removing the ‘Grand’ from its name pre-acquisition and injecting a new art-inspired concept to differentiate the brand from others in its portfolio.
FEH now counts nine brands following its joint venture with Australia’s Toga Group which operates Adina Apartment Hotels, Medina Service Apartments, Rendezvous Hotels, Vibe Hotels and Travelodge Hotels (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 3, 2013).
Far East Hospitality Management CEO, Arthur Kiong, interviewed by TTG Asia e-Daily on the sideline of the relaunch last Friday, described the repositioning as “an experiment” to see if the brand could appeal to the cultured cosmopolitan market.
Being art-inspired, the hotel will offer dedicated spaces to showcase local art, technology to facilitate art and design-related exhibitions and special entry rates to museums in its vicinity, among others.
“We bought a hotel with an existing product, so we needed to rationalise how it’s going to compete with other brands, but also how it would sit within our brand. This (relaunch) is an experiment; we spent a modest amount in renovating the lobby, function rooms, club and club lounge and (in the repositioning) to see if it could appeal to the cultured cosmopolitan market,” said Kiong.
He said FEH’s brands are all geared for mid/upscale market, however, as this market is huge, there has to be different products to suit its different psychographics, not demographics.
“Rendezvous is located in areas that have museums, art, where the local community could display its art and vibrancy, while Oasia is for the road warriors, who are here to work but want serenity and functionality at the same time. Quincy is for the jet-set crowd who wants glamour while Village is more in the bohemian, fringe neighbourhoods.
“You can’t divide people by their demographics – i.e., females or males, Malays or Indians, young or old – rather, by their psychographics.”
Kiong said with a string of brands, the group would look into expanding into gateway cities which are directly connected to Singapore. “Our strategy is to have many brands so when we go into these gateway cities, we could have a Quincy, a Rendezvous, an Oasia, etc, which does not compete with each other, unlike having six brand X hotels in one city.”
These gateway cities are also already a huge source market for FEH, for example Australia or Europe. “Australia contributes about nine per cent to our business. Europe is significant too. So I could see a Rendezvous in, say, Berlin, if there’s an opportunity, as we already have Adina there,” said Kiong.
