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First Hyatt Centric branded hotel in South-east Asia grows from strength to strength

/ Posted on 25 October, 2023 10:45

Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu celebrates its first year of operation in October with key milestones and awards

The award-winning Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu is popular among travellers from China and South Korea

Brought to you by Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu

Bearing strong testimony to its robust growth, Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu commemorated its first anniversary amid positive guest sentiments and industry accolades, complete with key milestones.

Hyatt Hotels Corporation’s opening of the hotel late last year marked the debut of Hyatt’s rapidly growing lifestyle brand in Malaysia and South-east Asia.

Within one year of operation, the first Hyatt Centric branded hotel in South-east Asia clinched the MyMalaysia Tourism Awards 2023: Outstanding New Lifestyle Hotel; Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia (PAM) Award – Hospitality: Silver Award; as well as a Silver Certification by GreenRE.

The 222-key hotel also managed to up the popularity stakes, in particular gaining favour with travellers from China and South Korea. Guest sentiments have been exceptional during the first year too.

Hotel guests are generally impressed with its warm hospitality, thoughtful amenities and facilities, outstanding architecture and strategic location in the heart of the city’s lively dining and entertainment district.

Hotel highlights

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Building connections with the local community
In its first year, Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu has successfully reached out to the local community through meaningful activities that supported design, arts, sustainability and local culture, in line with its brand values.

Last December, the lifestyle hotel hosted the inaugural Ewan Lane Festival, in a bid to promote Kota Kinabalu’s urban culture and to foster connections with the local community.

The two-day festival spotlighted street art, extreme sports and music that featured street artists, painters, skateboarders, B-Boys and musicians, as well as 14 influential and diverse Sabahan artists who performed alongside the emerging young talents.

Esteemed chefs city-wide also whipped up a storm for the hotel’s specially curated its Best Bah-Ger (Burger) in Kota Kinabalu competition, a friendly cook-off at its ON22 restaurant.

To encourage hotel guests to explore the hidden gems of the neighbourhood, Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu even came up with guided street art tours.

Curated by a resident and local artist of Kota Kinabalu, participants could listen to the real stories and inspiration behind a collection of iconic works of street art through the 60-minute walking tour.

In addition, the boundary-pushing establishment took a bold step by partnering with well-known local designer, Melinda Looi, to come up with a striking and fun design for the hotel staff uniforms, paired with vibrant accessories from Happy Plastics Borneo made of upcycled plastic materials to promote sustainable fashion.

The sustainability front also saw the hotel advancing eco-friendly activations through its operations to garner the Silver certification by GreenRE for green building excellence.

Trailblazer in the F&B scene
Meanwhile, Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu’s novel culinary concepts is shaking up the F&B scene in the city.

The hotel introduced the immersion of the vibrant local Sabahan palate paired with true Sabahan hospitality, curated especially for food adventurers.

Now on the locals’ must-visit list, its all-day dining outlet ON22 with Chef Jun Yip Ho at the helm, is giving contemporary Asian cuisine a delightful twist by using fresh, sustainable, and mainly locally sourced ingredients, and centring it on the popular sharing concept.

Chef Jun’s signature Lambshank Rendang is one of the most-ordered dishes thanks to its succulent, fall-off-the-bone meat and flavourful sauce – a culinary delight that is worth a visit to ON22 just to try it out.

The hotel’s trendy ON23 Sky Bar is also making waves with its locally-crafted cocktails made with local ingredients, as well as its stunning panoramic views capturing the magical sunsets in Kota Kinabalu.

Talent at the heart
Hyatt Centric Kota Kinabalu remains committed to working closely with local talents to grow their careers, as well as learn from them to improve the hotel offerings and services to take it to the next level.

Manpower development continues to focus on regular staff engagement for job training and skills building for its workforce.

Fresh graduates are also given the opportunity to join the team and accumulate experience on-site for further career growth.

Ruben Schrijver, general manager, said: “I’m extremely proud of each team member; Working with such enthusiastic and friendly individuals in this hotel has been an absolute joy. After a year of noteworthy accomplishments, we’re eagerly looking forward to creating more memorable experiences with our guests and visitors.”