A Hard Rock hotel has just opened in Goa and the brand will also debut in China in Shenzhen, followed by Haikou. It’s rock-and-roll in Asia for EVP and chief development officer-hotels Marco Roca, who speaks to Raini Hamdi.
Are you having a rocking good time expanding Hard Rock Hotels?
Oh yes. I’ve set a goal of 100 Hard Rock Hotels – opened or signed agreements – globally by 2020, when I’ll be 60 years old. This will be my last stop after 32 years in the hospitality business and I love the brand, so I’ve my heart set on that target.
How far are you with it and how does Asia figure in it?
We have 22 opened hotels, including our casinos, and 18 executed agreements, so there are 60 left to be done.
Of the 60, I figure 50 per cent will be in the US, 25 per cent Asia and 25 per cent in the Middle East and Europe. We’ve brought in senior vice president hotel development (Asia & India), Leong Wy Joon, a few months ago, to look at expansion in key resorts and key global cities in the region such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai.
Why did it take Hard Rock so long to place that role here so you could grow?
That’s a correct assessment. But nobody saw Lehman coming and things went kind of dormant for everyone from 2007 to 2011.
After that, we all needed to reconstruct and reposition ourselves for new growth. Hard Rock did a tremendous undertaking to get our backbone – the operating standards, manuals and other essentials – right.
There was still growth at the time but it was slow, methodical, with iconic additions such as a collection of all-inclusive hotels in Latin America that has been immensely successful. So we got the fundamentals right. You can’t push greatness; it has to happen when its moment comes.
Why is Hard Rock still relevant?
Music will always be relevant. We consider ourselves a lifestyle hotel, but we didn’t go out to create a brand to fit a ‘lifestyle’ niche. We are all about the music, and we create our hotels around music. We are the largest curator of musical memorabilia, with 80,000 original pieces in our collection, and they cut across generations, genres and cultures of music. We don’t only have Beatles guitars or Michael Jackson’s jacket, but an entire collection, from Shakira to Asian artistes now. We’re a music museum with rooms and we appeal to people from eight years old to 80. Who does not love music; it is the international language of love.
Other brands are trying to be relevant. If you were a lifestyle brand three years ago, how do you stay relevant? It scares me to see those groups that are trying to be relevant through design and technology – just look at the speed of change!
Yes, but has anything changed with Hard Rock? Surely you need to evolve to cater to the new generation?
Yes, absolutely, and I would point to our original cafes, which had a lot of wood and brass. Our newer cafes are more with the times.
Similarly, our hotels are contemporary and, as we open more of them, I’m excited for you to see some of the design aspects and how we’re integrating the whole music platform with modern technology and all the things people expect of an upper upscale brand today.
How are you relevant to millennials?
We’re very popular with millennials. My children love Hard Rock.
But of course, they are your children!
They love Hard Rock before I joined the company. In fact I beame much cooler once I got the job!
Are Hard Rock Cafes doing well in today’s proliferation of cafes?
I would point to you that the number one most collected item in the world is the Hard Rock T-shirt – 7.4 million T-shirts sold around the world per year. We have 15.6 million articles of merchandise with the Hard Rock logo – people are paying to exhibit our brand. I do a lot of high fives when I walk around airports (laughs).
We would not be as successful without the legacy of the cafes. There are some 160 cafes globally today.
You’re in charge of Hard Rock Hotels development. Is there synergy from the cafes development side?
Sometimes we integrate cafes into hotels. We also give each other leads. So it’s a tight community between restaurants and hotels. A restaurant developer may evolve into a hotel developer and many times a hotel developer may decide to do a restaurant, so there is a lot of crossovers between the two. That has helped us a great deal.
Are you seeking to franchise or manage hotels?
Both. Most of our 22 hotels in operation today are franchised, although we manage all of our casino hotels in the US. Of the 18 signed agreements, 12 are managed, six franchised, so as we grow there is a preference to manage, simply because we have a unique brand. Tell me one other brand that has a position in a hotel called a vibe manager? That’s a full-time position and the manager creates the ambience – the intensity of lighting, sound, the kind of music to play, infusion of smell, etc.
But hospitality schools don’t produce vibe managers. So it’s difficult to find a partner to manage a franchise or know the DNA of the brand as we do, although there are such partners. With the right owner and the right opportunity we are still open to franchising. Plus, when we franchise, we’re different from other companies in that we work really closely with partners to ensure the product matches the brand – we want to be iconic, edgy and inspirational.
So would a cool brand mean cool fees too for owners?
(Laughs) We are cool and hip but we are traditional in the way we do business, so don’t let the way we dress in jeans make you feel we are less serious or hardworking.
Models of management and franchises have evolved over time and the industry is fairly competitive in a small range of fees. Perhaps what’s cool is that our management contracts are not as long as everybody else’s or as boring.
What are the challenges of expanding Hard Rock in Asia?
The brand is mostly known for its cafes. Currently we have five hotels operating in Asia, so we need to build brand recognition for the hospitality aspect of Hard Rock. And Asia as you know is one of the most competitive markets in the world.
