Kurt Macher said when he was 10 he wanted to be a chef. “Now I would like to be CEO of a really cool company by the time I am 50,” said the GM of the 100-room Temple House, Chengdu, China.
Macher is already boss of one of Asia’s coolest places, which celebrates its second birthday this very Tuesday (July 18) by being awarded Travel + Leisure’s #1 Best City Hotel in Asia, 2017.
Actually it is perhaps an understatement to call this a hotel as the entire complex, which is close to DACI Temple, also includes two century-old houses. One encompasses the arrival courtyard, giving Temple House a serious art gallery and a significant library. Managed by Swire Hotels, the 100-room, L-shaped hotel block, rising nine floors, looks diagonally at an L-shaped block of 42 owned residences. In between are miniature grassy mountains, inspired by rice fields, and a working herb garden, with large peephole-like viewing areas down to a level below, where corridors have walls of castle-like stones (down here are an Olympic pool, a 24/7 fitness room and an Italian restaurant).
“This is a sensational project that blends seamlessly with the chic retail area around,” Macher said. “Our farm-to-table Chinese-French Temple Café, and courtyard GING Bar, blend seamlessly with the surrounding retail village. Shoppers at the Apple Studio, or Zara, wander in for a drink, or noodles, not realizing we are part of a hotel.”
One challenge in most destinations is China’s incredibly high labor turnover and a workforce that is not truly English-proficient. When Macher arrived July 1, 2016, turnover was 34%. He aims for 25% this year, thanks to continuous motivation. Back-of-house has been painted in attractive colors with some walls bearing all team members’ handprints, and others a gallery of photos of all 360 (those who leave take their photo on as a souvenir).
At town hall meetings, Macher personally leads Temple House Catch Up stretching, and there is a car-sharing scheme. “In China, young women are global fashionistas while men tend, to put it nicely, to dress down,” said the bearded GM who introduced the team to his husband, a Singaporean photographer, from the start. “But my guys are sensationally sartorial when it comes to hairstyles, grooming and shoes. I favor individuality.”
Macher has also taken a unique stance on English proficiency. Instead of formal lessons, all his team, apart from the eight expats, have ongoing role-play initiatives. Servers, for instance, hold cards that colleagues then have to repeat, correctly, say, ‘Would you like some more coffee?’
Already, this is TripAdvisor’s 2017 leading hotel in China for service, and at a random glance, three adjacent postings say, ‘Great staffs, awesome room and yummylicious food!’
“The typical Temple House guest is into fashion, media and technology, which stimulates my own creativity,” Macher continued.
He has evolved the art gallery into a showplace for modern Chengdu art, while the library, filled with 2,000 hardbacks, Chinese and English, chosen by Philip Blackwell’s Ultimate Library, is used for TED-type Temple House Sessions, with influencers and such partners as Cartier and Hublot. An antique bureau that designer Dan Shuttleworth had placed in what could be called a lobby happened to have 24 drawers. “Last December we used it as an Advent calendar and now, year round, it is our check-in drawers of fortune. Every arrival is invited to open a drawer, which contains anything from a mahjong-shaped sweet to a voucher for a suite upgrade, or for a treatment at our MIX UN Spa, in the second old house.”
Ideas keep coming. Sustainability includes the Christmas tree made of empty wine bottles and, for all to see, a herb garden. Saturday meet-the-locals yoga sessions now flow into picnics, European-style, on the central mini-mountain lawn. “They get cloths to spread on the grass, and hampers with food and drink – they bring their own cameras for selfies.”
Back in his native Austria, Macher was inspired by his mother, a pastry chef. He completed a four-year F&B and culinary diploma at Landesberufsschule Bad Gleichenberg and continued to a two-year tourism and hospitality management diploma at Tourismuskolleg Bad Gleichenberg.
After six years with Peninsula in the United States and Asia, and four years with Four Seasons, which included the re-opening of Four Seasons Resort Nevis, he moved as resident manager to Pan Pacific Singapore. Next came heading projects for Marco Polo Hotels, where he helped formulate its new Niccolo brand, launched in Chengdu. That was where Swire Hotels CEO Brian Williams found him. He now has eight years to achieve his lifetime goal.