Grateful to have a team with a common vision.

In the year 2019, just before the pandemic was well prepared to bring in the changes in our way of living, Thailand as a country was roaring high in terms of welcoming tourists from across the globe with 39.8 million tourists recorded and was ranked as the world's eighth most visited country as per World Tourism rankings compiled by the United Nations World Tourism Organization. The top three contributions came from China with more than 11 million tourists, Malaysia with roughly 4 million tourists and India contributing 1.9 million tourists.

In the year 2022 when I was presented the opportunity to head the team at Oakwood Hotel & Residence Bangkok, amidst the everchanging scenarios presented by the pandemic, we were striving to have a clear vision for the way forward with short term and long-term goals to be able to stabilize the performance of the property with strategic decisions. Analyzing the data of pre pandemic era, one aspect was clear which was if we want to pull in leisure market as one of the key segments, India can be considered as one of the target markets which can help us achieve our financial goals as for China the situation was uncertain, and Malaysia was not yet ready to travel at that point.

At this point, there were two key aspects which we wanted to work on to bring this thought into action. 1) Location - Indian tourists were too used to the location name is Prathunam which is the shopping hub for many Indians in Bangkok and offers many local Indian restaurants as well. 2) Food - There are many Indian tourists who are keen on having Indian food and vegetarian Indian food at many times, whether at home or away from home.

These thoughts made us engage into discussions with various industry experts to seek their opinion and thoughts as well. As a results, we were able to articulate that if we are able to create an awareness of the offerings of the location / community (in and around where our hotel is located close to the Chao Phraya River) in a manner which attracts a different genre of tourists who are looking out more for an experience while staying in Bangkok rather than just shopping arcades, it may create wonders in time to come and create a sensation in the region where our hotel was located. With this thought, our marketing team Khun Nancy, our cluster marketing head and Khun Nutt, our official moments catcher came into action, and we started exploring places in and around our hotel and highlighting local business, local flavors, local offerings. Places like ICON SIAM SHOPPING CENTRE, ASIATIQUE RIVERSIDE MALL, CHINA TOWN which also has the famous Phahurat market commonly known as the little India in Bangkok were captured, spoke about, shared in social media platforms.

The next step was food. Since it was a very initial stage and we were not still sure about the ROI of the path we were approaching towards, we decided to start with offering a la carte Indian breakfast on need be basis to the test and go Indian travelers (this was still during phase 1 of reopening during covid in 2022 Q2). Now the question was to do this we need an Indian chef in place. Now this is where it gets interesting, fortunately and thankfully, being a hotel management graduate helped me and I was able to start up as a General Manager turned into Chef preparing the Indian breakfasts for our initial guests. To our utter surprise, we could see the growth in numbers within 45-60 days of the trial period. Thanks to Lina Abdullah for trusting me and allowing me to play along with my crazy ideas / thoughts. In time to come we were able to place our thoughts into action and we conducted a food trail session / professional photo shoots of the Indian cuisine being launched.

The next step was reaching out to all our online and offline partners with the help of our revenue experts Ashraful Mizan , attending road shows within the country Rachan Buathin in different provinces and in India as well such as #SATTE and #OTM. Sharing our initiatives with them. Seeking their support. Engaging in geo source marketing, FAM Tours, Networking events and so on.

As a result, after almost 2 years from where we started in Jan 2022, we are now glad to be recognized and receive the Customer Choice Award by team MakeMyTrip in 2023. While we cater to many diversified markets, Indian market does contribute now amongst the top 5 performers.

Grateful to have a team with a common vision!