Hotels Ripe for Innovation in so Many Ways, Says Disruptor Banyan Tree
Ho: Manpower shortage, sustainability and wellness are a few areas that are ripe for innovation. Photo courtesy of Thailand Tourism Forum 2023
By Raini Hamdi, 18 March 2023
Constraints are the mother of innovation. The bigger the constraint, the greater the opportunity to innovate and disrupt the industry, says Ho Ren Yung, senior vice president of brand and commercial, Banyan Tree Group.
She should know. Her father, Ho Kwon Ping, turned 500 hectares of spoiled tin-mined land in Phuket into a luxury destination. Banyan Tree’s pool villa, invented around three decades ago, is a sexy concept, but it was a result of “a lot of unsexy constraints, and patience,” said Ho.
The company took seven years to rehabilitate the land into what is now the Laguna Phuket. But the last piece of land had no beach – hence the first pool villa was born, Ho recounted. “Much about it was also around designing what a customer would want and how to bring nature in.”
Hotels today have lots of opportunities to innovate as they face many constraints, she said. One of the biggest is the shortage of talent in an industry driven by people.
But this is the chance to innovate the hotel career and employment contract, said Ho during a media conference at Thailand Tourism Forum 2023 and a panel session at the main event.
Attracting talent to the industry is about “reshaping the employment contract in many ways – time [i.e., working hours], benefits, the ability to work in different locations whether within the country or externally, and so on,” she said.
“More importantly is allowing people to feel they have a portfolio career, to learn many things in a short period of time and not do the same thing every day almost like in a factory. A lot of hotels are set up for that kind of model, which is not attractive,” said Ho.
She observed that Thai design has evolved more than Thai hospitality.
“Thai design has a playfulness to it that contrasts with heritage and modernity. But I haven’t seen that playfulness in the traditional Thai hospitality. A reinvention of that is in order. We’re seeing our younger associates pushing us with mobile-first way of training and learning, and to change the way we communicate within hotels and the way we treat our guests,” said Ho.
The average age of Banyan Tree Group workforce has dropped by about 10 years. So has the length of service.
“Before Covid-19, a large part of the team had been with the group for more than 10 years. After Covid, the average is three to five years due to what happened to the industry [i.e., attritions and resignations as hotels struggled].”
Ho reiterated her belief that there is “so much happening in our field – there’s innovation for efficiency, product design and experience” among others.
“What’s important for every company is to disrupt itself. But you need to lean on your core drivers and core competencies,” Ho said. “For us, that’s about creating experiences and design that lead someone to reframe his or her perspective on life and return to their own lives with something new. That’s the power of hospitality,” said Ho.
Spa and Shrink Session
An interesting development she mentioned is how the spa is effectively turning into a shrink session as well, which could lead to a reinvention in wellness.
“We’re finding that a lot of people are coming to our practitioners with problems around connecting to their own family members, or connecting with each other, or even their own direction in life. It’s almost like the wellness space is merging with therapy room. We’ve even had people asking us do you run couples therapy sessions or retreats?
“There’s definitely a mega trend of customers looking for wellness beyond the typical discipline retreats and more around a curiosity of what it means to live well.”
Sustainability is another core competency of Banyan Tree Group, and yet another area ripe for innovation.
“For the last 10 years, sustainability was a bonus, it didn’t really drive a rate premium or loyalty. Now we’re starting to see what people care about. Some people care about sustainability in the area of food – where their food comes from, for instance. Others care about no plastic, yet others on how much of the tourist dollar is going back to the local economy. Different brands can express that in different ways. We are essentially a nature-based company; people come to our properties to enjoy the nature around us.
“So one of the things that we’re looking at is not just a resort’s environment and its landscape, but the greening of that landscape, increasing the biodiversity and other aspects. So for example, I’m excited about the next evolution of Laguna Phuket, which is about creating micro forests and biodiversity corridors. We’re looking at things like soil bacteria, migratory bird species and such.
“It’s not just because of our passion for sustainability. It’s also because we have 1,500 people living there in our branded residences and this is going to be a huge driver for people’s preferences moving forward,” said Ho.
When asked what she would do first to reinvent hospitality, Ho said, “The soul of hospitality is not around roomnights, though that’s incredibly important. I would immediately change our revenue metric to customer lifetime value, as opposed to RevPAR and RGI. I strongly believe in the idea that hotel business is about serving the customer through the entire time, considering all the revenue streams of a hotel.
“Next, I would abolish all departments in the hotel – no more housekeeping, engineering, F&B, etc – then build that up in a different way, break the regimented departments and disrupt that. I’m not going to take that job!”