This Luxury Hotelier is Game for Unconventional Revenue Streams Such as Esports
Marcus Hanna: Positioned Fairmont and Swissotel The Stamford in Singapore as the first mover among hotels in the city to tap the esports market. Right, one of the three luxury gaming suites at Fairmont
By Raini Hamdi, 25 Nov 2022
To those unfamiliar with esports, it refers to organized competitive video gaming where a team, or a person, wins.
One of the biggest esports tournaments, The International (Dota 2), fetches a prize of $40 million, excluding lucrative sponsorships due to thousands of in-person attendees and millions of fans watching at home.
According to Niko Partners, which analyzes the video games market and consumers in Asia, esports viewership in Asia grew to more than 675 million fans in 2021. Asia is the world’s largest and most important region for esports, accounting for more than 57 percent of a $1.1 billion global esports market, it says.
It’s a crowd that isn’t usually associated with luxury hotels. But in Singapore, Marcus Hanna, managing director of Fairmont Singapore and Swissôtel The Stamford Singapore, has changed that perception.
Hanna led the two sister hotels within the Raffles City complex to dip their toes into the market in March last year, working with PGL, One Esports and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) to kick-off the first major of the 2021 Dota 2 Pro Circuit.
Fairmont hosted 18 teams who arrived in Singapore to compete. An entire floor of the hotel was blocked off to facilitate training for players, and rooms were transformed into gaming suites with equipment such as Secretlab gaming chairs. Adding to the challenge was the need to ensure that Covid-19 health and safety rules were adhered to, as Singapore was still in a pandemic lockdown at the time (watch this documentary on how the event was held in line with safety measures, in a closed-doors scenario and streamed across various platforms).
No spectators were allowed but live-streaming on official channels including One Esports Twitch, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok showed nearly 600,000 peak viewers, according to Esports Charts.
Eye-opener
Hosting the tournament was an eye-opener and learning curve for Hanna and his team. “We started looking into the esports industry earnestly. It’s such a huge industry and Singapore hasn’t tapped into that from a hotel perspective. We thought, let’s be the leaders in this and make sure that we are top-of-mind for any esports event that comes to Singapore,” said Hanna.
He also grasped a niche opportunity to combine gaming with luxury hospitality. The gaming industry overall, including esports, is worth $196 billion, according to Innovation & Tech Today. Worldwide, 3.4 billion people call themselves gamers. Their average age is 35 years old and if you think it’s mainly a boy’s club, 45 percent of gamers in the US are women, says the publication.
In May, the Fairmont launched probably the world’s first luxury gaming suites, in partnership with Razer. Three suites are decked with Razer’s tech gear and can be booked in blocks of hours by anyone who wants to game in five-star surroundings and sample or enjoy games of wider appeal. Bookings enjoy discounts on overnight stays, dining bills and spa treatments at Fairmont and Swissotel, enticing guests to spend more at the hotels.
“We’ve seen a healthy mix of young adult gamers, couples and even parents who check in with their tweens and teenagers for a weekend of gaming fun,” said Hanna, adding that the luxury gaming suites have also become a place to celebrate special occasions, from birthdays to wedding proposals even.
Singapore meanwhile went on to host The International (Dota 2) in October at two venues, the Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre and Singapore Indoor Stadium, marking the first time the championship was held in South-east Asia. Needless to say, Fairmont was a relevant hotel for the tournament.
“We had people from the event staying with us. Some of the teams also did their bootcamps in our Razer gaming suites. It’s great that STB sees the value of this whole new market and is going after it,” said Hanna.
STB’s executive director, sports & wellness, Ong Ling Lee, said best-in-class esports events are increasingly a motivation for travel. “As such, they are an integral part of our strategy to drive visitor arrivals and boost our position as a leading sports and leisure destination. We will continue to work with relevant partners to cultivate a pipeline of world-class esports events, such as the inaugural Olympic Esports Week that will be held here in June 2023. This adds to our robust and exciting events calendar, and inspire future and repeat visits.”
Priceless Impact
For Hanna, apart from direct sales, the indirect impact of positioning the two hotels as properties that understand esports is priceless.
“We recently hosted Gorgc, a globally ranked streamer for The International, and his stream reached over eight million impressions,” he said. “Many other esports brands have reached out to us for collaborations. The halo effect has put us in good standing within the esports industry and this spells immense potential for global esporting events at Raffles City Convention Centre. It also aligns us with the Singapore government, which has set its sights on becoming a world force in esports.”
A huge part of Hanna’s motivation to drive new revenue streams comes from the responsibility to fill the Swissotel and Fairmont which boast a total of 2,030 rooms and 13 restaurants and bars.
When push comes to shove, he steps up to the occasion. Swissotel, for example, was first to put up its hands as a quarantine hotel when the idea was mooted by STB in March 2020. In all likelihood, that eased the discomfort felt by Singapore hoteliers about being transformed into quarantine facilities.
“STB got all the GM’s into an auditorium to discuss the [proposal]. We were all hesitant as this was uncharted. We worried about what would it do to our reputation, and the stigma that quarantine hotels might face from guests.
“But when I went back and looked at the bookings that were falling off the system, I realized we didn’t have many options. My priority was to keep people employed and the only way to do that was if we had revenue coming in,” Hanna said.
Moreover, the hotel just completed a multi-million-dollar renovation. “It was frustrating as 2020 was to be the start of getting back the ROI for our owning company,” he said.
Courageous Innovation
Covid-19 brought out the spirit of “thinking differently and creatively” about new revenue streams as a team, said Hanna. They weren’t afraid of initiatives that might be seen as unseemly for luxury hotels.
“If you have said to me that you’re going to run a restaurant in your five-star hotel which is geared towards one to four-year-olds, I may think you’re mad. But why not, if that’s the market that you have at the time?”
Hanna was referring to partnerships with Sanrio’s Hello Kitty for “purrfect” staycations and afternoon high teas, Pokémon-themed staycations that included free Nintendo Switch & Pokémon games loan sets, and the launch of the world’s first CoComelon-themed cafe. All were a hit in bringing guests to the two hotels.
Another initiative, Fairmont at Home, was a life-saver when cashflow during the pandemic was tight. In the first year, the online luxury supermarket sold in excess of $1 million groceries, meats and fish, wines and cooked meals. Sales of online gift vouchers for staycations, high teas and dining were 20-fold in the first year, compared with gift voucher sales pre-pandemic.
“All this is a team effort,” said Hanna. “When you start pushing yourself to be creative, it becomes very contagious.
“We just want to make sure that we stay relevant, that we’re ahead of our competition in trends that are happening and giving our guests different experiences to enjoy. That’s something we’ve done very well and we plan to continue doing so.”
Footnote Following the article, Do Superhero Hotel General Managers Exist?, Hotels-Asia is delighted to regularly feature hoteliers whose leadership gives a resounding yes to the question