Salaries of Asia’s Hotel CEOs and GMs may be Returning to Pre-Covid Level

Photo by Alexander Mils on Unsplash

By Raini Hamdi, February 8, 2022

Salaries of CEOs in hotels and related sectors such as F&B, technology, consultancy, real estate and corporate travel in Asia continue to stay below 2019 levels but the gap is closing — except in Singapore, where an apparent drastic cut in salaries since the pandemic needs more time to heal.

Likewise, incomes of general managers are improving except, again, in Singapore, according to findings of the 10th salary and employment trends report by Singapore-based ACI HR Solutions (see chart of CEO and GM salaries below).

Overall, the average basic salary per annum of a CEO in this industry in Asia was $160,000 last year, compared with $167,000 in 2019. Singapore hospitality captains, however, are still the worst-hit in South-east Asia. They saw the deepest cut of 41 percent from 2019, to $141,000 last year. This put their salaries on the same level as counterparts in lower-cost Malaysia, who earned $145,000 in 2021.

In comparison, CEOs in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia saw their average basic salary in 2021 erode 27 percent to $131,000, compared with 2019. In Malaysia it’s down 16 percent from 2019, to $145,000 last year. Only CEOs in Indonesia saw virtually no change in basic income, which averaged $90,000 last year and in 2019.

The figures are unaudited, and ACI’s founder and CEO Andrew Chan admits that as the survey relies on respondents to share their salaries, anomalies may occur. Besides, actual basic salaries for senior leaders can be meaningless, as they don’t account for perks such as bonuses, shares, housing and other allowances.

Nevertheless, the report may serve as a rough gauge of where the industry’s salary and employment patterns are headed.

It also shows a correlation between travel reopening in the region and salary changes in the industry. CEOs in the UAE, for example, recorded by far the highest average basic salary of $358,000 in 2021. No surprise there, as tourism dollars have been flowing into the UAE’s biggest tourism hub, Dubai which, together with the Maldives, were the first to reopen to international tourists in 2020.

According to STR, Dubai (and Miami) led the world in hotel profit recovery last year. Helped by the Expo, the emirate’s gross operating profit per available room of $90 last year was 95 percent of 2019’s level.

If Money Talks

General managers earned a basic sum of $112,000 last year, up 6 percent from $105,000 in 2019.

If money talks, GMs should head straight to China, which recorded the highest basic salary for a GM of $154,000 in 2021 – higher than Hong Kong/Macau ($147,000), Korea/Japan ($128,000), Australia ($150,000) and the UAE ($119,000).

This, too, isn’t surprising as China’s huge domestic market has shielded the industry from the pandemic in the past two years.

Moreover, five star international hotels in China have been experiencing increases in average salaries over the years, said Chan. “While Hong Kong is traditionally seen as having higher average salaries than China, I’m no longer as surprised when I see higher salaries coming from China over Hong Kong,” he said.

But GMs in Hong Kong still are among top three earners in the Asian markets surveyed, and their basic salary rose to $147,000 in 2021, from $138,000 in 2019. This, despite Hong Kong borders being shut last year, although 21-day quarantines and the staycation business meant hoteliers had to be more creative than ever in winning over clients. Moreover, as expat GMs started leaving the city, the brain drain could mean higher salaries were needed to retain or hire GMs.

Over in Hong Kong’s biggest financial hub competitor in the region, Singapore, general managers failed to reach their 2019 income level of $120,000 although, at $110,000 in 2021, they could take heart that it’s getting there.

The study, the 10th by ACI, was conducted from December 2021 to early January 2022, thus it took into account the Omicron outbreak. Respondents totaled 820, with the largest (32 percent)) based in Singapore. Forty percent of all respondents were from the hospitality industry, the rest from related sectors. They were able to respond in any currency, and these were then converted to USD.

Hiring Challenges

Fewer redundancies happened in 2021, with 12 percent of respondents indicating they were made redundant, compared with 24 percent in 2020. Fewer salary cuts also happened, 29 percent last year compared with 36 percent in 2020.

Hiring confidence is returning, although this is likely to happen only in the latter half of 2022, said the bulk (34 percent) of human resource respondents. The biggest worry when hiring restarts is competition for talent. As in the West, many employees who have left may not return but in Asia, with borders remaining closed, only a limited pool of in-country talents is available.

Hiring managers should also be wary of the pandemic’s impact on people’s confidence to pursue a hospitality and travel career. While 46 percent of respondents believe the worst is over and tourism will rebound stronger, 54 percent are either undecided or want to pivot to another sector. The industry is likely to lose them to technology, healthcare, medical and pharmaceutical, real estate, retail, and fast-moving consumer goods, in that order.

It’s not about the money, as only 20 percent of respondents said salary was the prime reason for accepting their positions.

Career progression and training won hands-down, deemed important by 91 percent of respondents, with 38 percent saying it’s extremely important.

Sadly, this remains a long-standing issue in the industry. More than half of respondents (51 percent) said the career progression and training they received were “fair” or “poor,” while another 14 percent did not receive any.

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