When it opens on May 12, Park Hyatt Bangkok will be atypical of the brand as its general manager, Michael Golden, breaks with traditions.
The seasoned Park Hyatt hotelier said he is re-looking at the “customer perspective” and “commercial perspective,” resulting in experiments from changing the service mindset to outsourcing key functions like housekeeping, stewarding and even security.
“We are a bit of a test zone for the Park Hyatt hotel of the future,” Golden said. “Some of the things we’re trying may work, others may not, and we will have to be nimble and change them if they don’t work.”
For a posh brand to outsource key functions is unheard of in Thailand, where labor costs are relatively low and there isn’t a critical staff shortage. But Golden said, “We want to look at this commercially.”
He pointed out how the Thai market has yo-yoed dramatically in recent past. “So many things have happened and hotels got hit the hardest. There was the flood, for example, and business levels just dropped to the floor,” Golden said. “With the traditional way hotels are structured, you don’t have the flexibility (of responding to the ups and downs). We are trying to create that flexibility from a commercial standpoint. We’re trying to be a better business while offering better service to our guests.”
Golden, who was GM of Park Hyatt Saigon for over six years before his new assignment in Bangkok, said outsourcing has been done in Park Hyatt Tokyo. “It is not common yet in this part of the world, but we will do it. So instead of us having 500 members in the team, may be we’ll have half of that,” he added. “Five-star hotels don’t believe anyone else can do the job well, only them. We’re going to break the mold.”
Golden admitted it has taken a long time to find the right experts to outsource the functions. “First and foremost in our mind is the quality of the guest experience. It is a Park Hyatt after all,” he said. “So for me it’s critical to know who is the organization we’re dealing with, who’s the senior management, who’s going to be in charge of our hotel, is it able to adjust to this level of quality? It is a relationship and it has to work both ways. The ones with the vision realize it’s a massive opportunity for them to be involve in a project such as this as hotels haven’t given them a chance.”
The service style will also be different at the hotel. Golden does not want a guest request or need to ever be passed from one staff to another because of the ‘it’s not my job but yours’ mentality. So staff are less “job-specific” and more “area-specific.”
“Instead of training you on check-in in the front office, you are trained on everything you need to do between the driveway and the guestroom,” Golden said. “So if a guest arrives at the driveway the first staff he meets will check him in. If he wants to immediately have a drink at the lobby lounge, the staff can take him there and take his order.
“It’s the arrival experience and the movement of people around the hotel and ensuring a staff can attend to a guest himself, not who he can direct you to. It’s a simple concept but the industry has become very silo-ed about jobs and we’re trying to break down those walls.
“Similarly in F&B, you might work in the lobby lounge today but in the grill room tomorrow. You have to have the flexibility to work anywhere.”
It has also taken a long time to find the right staff. Golden said some were afraid of not being able to meet high guest expectations. “We’ve recruited people from different avenues, not necessarily from other hotels but from customer service backgrounds,” he shared.
The hotel construction delay, which has extended to more than two years, played into his hands in setting up these trials. Golden, who arrived in Bangkok in 2014, said the delay is due to the complicated architecture of the iconic building, Central Embassy, which has a curvilinear, twisted-coil structure, unsymmetrical in all dimensions. The 222-room Park Hyatt Bangkok is housed within the top 27 floors of this retail complex and has no fewer than 57 different room configurations because of the building’s design.
Pricing structure is yet another area he is changing. Rates will be comparable to the other posh brands in the city, around 8,500 baht (US$243), but F&B pricing isn’t going be typical hotel pricing. “We want people to come to the hotel everyday, not just on special occasions,” Golden said. “We’d rather be turning seats in our restaurants several times than have them half full in a single seating then have marketing meetings on what to do about it. In Bangkok, there are so many F&B options, you don’t need to go to a hotel. In the past, hotels were the main option. So we’ll combine r-star service with reasonable pricing.”
The hotel aims to present new unique F&B concepts. One of them is the Penthouse Bar & Grill, which spans the uppermost 34th, 35th and 36th floors of the hotel and conceived as the fictional penthouse of a well-travelled British-Thai collector of fine art and vintage car-racing relics. The complex will include an International Grill Restaurant, a cocktail bar with resident DJs, a VIP lounge, a Speakeasy and a Sky Bar, all with panoramic views.