Empowered Teams = Empowered Growth

I love a good team get-together, the energy generated from a clear sense of purpose, the collective debate and endless creativity. It’s a buzz.

At last year’s leadership conference, “Accelerate”, we launched our brand positioning: “The APAC alternative to global hotel brands, for owners seeking innovative solutions”, so kick starting this year’s planning, (and in anticipation of our upcoming leadership conference later in the year), our brands took centre-stage with growth on everyone’s mind.

With individuality, strength and innovation, our brands ensure our hotels stand out from the bland and encourage guest loyalty. This is a philosophy centered around our owners as much as our guests.

The consequences of not achieving a distinctive brand vision are stagnation: no new property signings, no profitability, no growth. Unacceptable!

This is so important that occasionally I’ve had to have hard conversations with owners about how our brand is brought to life across their hotel. It is my bitter experience that these discussions are better done sooner rather than later. The perfect brand experience is an investment in our guests, as well as our owners.

Our team set some big goals and nominated working teams to ensure each one becomes reality. No bloated committees, no protracted sign off procedures... we’ve empowered small, diverse, agile teams each a goal and the autonomy to do what is necessary to accelerate growth.

1/ Financial Growth

This is a 3-parter:

1.1/ Income: Obvious, but too often overlooked… We’re re-evaluating every opportunity to drive revenue outside of the rooms. This innovative working team must ensure there is no dead space in our hotels.

1.2/ Expenses: We’re striving for the maximum return on every dollar invested. This is not about cost cutting, this is about efficiency, optimizing creativity and income.

1.3/ Management: The expected growth we’re forecasting requires a significant shift in capacity, so we’re enhancing our financial infrastructure and required systems to handle it.

2/ ESG: Growing with our Communities

Our planning session was held at Asita Eco Resort because I’ve been so impressed by their work with the local community. As one simple and impactful example shows - a local tailor and photographer arrange for photo shoots with guests wearing hand crafted, traditional Thai clothing. The guests love it, the local business generates revenue, and the hotel doesn’t take a penny because they know a happier guest is spending longer on property and is more likely to return. This is a perfect example of an initiative that works for everyone.

3/ Stars of Tomorrow

Growth is not just about the no. keys, or bums on sun loungers, it’s also the growth for our people. Our planning session was an inspiring environment that encouraged the deep conversations that build a great culture. Personal goals were easily identified, and programs put in place to support them. From external courses to internal mentoring and work experience, we have the capacity to support the development of progressive individuals and extraordinary teams.

Our planning was a roaring success, and one that we will repeat every 6-months. Team meetings can’t be replaced by conference calls, and growth can’t be achieved in isolation.

I hope our aspirations have inspired you, but as ever, I’m looking for more ideas on how to push ourselves further, so please let me know what you are aiming for this year, and how you intend to achieve it…

HT