CHINA is one of the world’s fastest-developing markets for the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions industry. Many cities, such as Shanghai and Hangzhou are making it a key part of economic planning. And the hospitality industry is becoming increasingly mature as domestic and international tourism soars.

How would you assess China’s MICE market? What about the performance of your property?

Stephan Krause:

There are many opportunities on the Chinese market. It is important to distinguish our property from competitors and their offers, as there’s a vast variety of options that go hand in hand with the exhibitions, incentive tours and meetings of multinational enterprises.

Products need to be in line with economic trends, and the budget adjustment of the national and international companies needs to be considered.

Sofitel Shanghai Hyland provides the quintessential premium location of choice to live the French way with an authentic Shanghainese touch.

Our hotel has very good MICE facilities. It features 383 luxury guest rooms, including 80 uniquely designed suites. Among them, 141 rooms are entitled to Sofitel Club Millésime benefits, with stunning views of Nanjing Road E., Huangpu River and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

The 400-square-meter pillar-free Grand Ballroom is equipped with a P2.5 LED screen and state-of-the-art audio system. Multiple function rooms with different layout can accommodate events in varies sizes.

Daniel Muhor:

As budgets for MICE sector are often made about one year in advance, we are seeing many large MICE groups confirmed in the first quarter of 2020 which reflects the typical booking pattern.

Upon fully completion of the entire project to include kid’s park, water park, fish market and multiple entertainment venues, we are confident our MICE capture rate will increase. As a newly opened complex of 1,500 guest rooms, we expect MICE to reflect about 40 percent of our business in 2019.

We have noticed that overseas travel agencies roll out road shows in China in an attempt to grab a slice of the pie.

Jan Jansen:

After hosting the G20 Summit in 2016, Hangzhou has successfully positioned itself as an attractive MICE destination.

The city is blessed with a great MICE infrastructure, enjoys excellent access by rail, road and air while offering a wide selection of premium hotels. In tandem with some world-class (sporting) events that the city hosts, Hangzhou can certainly be considered one of the most premium MICE destinations in China.

On the hotel-level, we see very strong demand, particularly from the pharmaceutical, finance, auto and IT industries and, thanks to this diversified landscape, there is a good MICE base all year round.

The opening of Conrad Hangzhou marks another great addition to the MICE inventory in the city.

The hotel’s convenient location in Qianjiang New Town enables good access to Hangzhou’s main MICE venues, either by road or subway.

The hotel itself features 324 rooms, including 100 twin rooms, making it among the largest luxury hotel properties in the area. With 1,600 square meters of versatile meeting space, floor to ceiling windows, a rooftop terrace and the unique Longjing Living Room, the hotel is a great venue for memorable meeting experiences.

Maximilian Pleyer:

The majority of MICE business in Shanghai is likely to shift to the world’s largest exhibition complex — the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

Luckily, Hongqiao Jin Jiang Hotel is near the NECC, and has had a long working relationship with NECC since its opening. Being a government-licensed outside catering provider — of which there are not many in Shanghai — it gives us many opportunities to win MICE business.

Besides that, Hongqiao Jin Jiang has been in Shanghai Hongqiao market for nearly 28 years, and has established solid customer relationships and a fine reputation with many international and domestic companies, including event organizers, PR companies and travel agencies, which really helped the hotel’s MICE business.

For example, the hotel has been the food and beverage provider for the Asian Business Aviation and Conference Exhibition for seven years and last year we were selected as the outside catering partner for the LPGA Golf Tournament Shanghai.

More and more hotels are trying to provide exceptional service and create memorable brand experience. How do you differentiate yourself?

Stephan Krause:

Sofitel Shanghai Hyland is located in the “Paris of the East,” which is also known for the fashion style and creativity. We focus on the guest experience and tailor our offers by focusing on gastronomy, arts and culture, design and well-being.

Sofitel is incorporating the “French way of life” into every aspect of the guest experience, from the scents that guests smell and the music they hear, to the beauty products they use and linens they sleep on. These pillars refine our approach of MICE business.

Daniel Muhor:

We have recently appointed brand directors for each hotel brand, which will be dedicated to driving consistent brand standards across the portfolio.

Greenland Hotel and Tourism Group has expanded into not just a hotel group. We also have a tourism division and an exhibition division, which gives us an edge on the competition.

We are fortunate with the complex that we have three hotels enabling us to target multiple guests across all sectors for both the business and leisure travelers. Coupled with a 1,600-square-meter pillarless ballroom, we can also host large MICE and social events.

Once the entire project is complete, it will become a destination for both business and leisure travelers as it’s only a 10-minute drive from Pudong International Airport, 15 minutes from Shanghai Disney Resort and 40 minutes from downtown.

Jan Jansen:

Conrad Hangzhou is located inside one of Hangzhou’s most prominent buildings. Designed by renowned Dutch architect UN Studio, the 250-meter-high twin towers represent Hangzhou’s tidal bores, a natural phenomenon that occurs around the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.

In fact, the architect received a FIABCI — International Real Estate Federation — award last month for the building’s unique design.

Inside the hotel, the interior design and contemporary artwork reflect the rich history of Hangzhou.

Guests will find sleek interiors and unique artwork at every turn.

The hotel design, inspired by “Lunar Corona” — an optical phenomenon produced by the diffraction of sunlight or moonlight by water — draws inspiration from the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site, West Lake.

The “Lunar Corona” theme is brought to life by the warm and spacious décor featured throughout the hotel’s lobby, lounges and guest rooms. Also, the banquet spaces are designed to reflect a shimmering sunset over the lake, while the meeting area reflects mountains on the water — all expressing a peaceful environment for both business and leisure.

The hotel’s design and artwork are some of the key elements that represent the Conrad brand, renowned for its style and inspirational stay.

Another landmark is the Chinese restaurant, Li’an, located on the 50th floor, which is the highest restaurant in Hangzhou. Guests can enjoy unobstructed views of the city skyline and the Qiantang River, with its famous light show, from all directions of the restaurant. And the presence of the famed local chef Yu Bin ensures that guests enjoy traditional Hangzhou cuisine infused with some international elements, which are presented in a contemporary style.

As part of the Hilton Group, Conrad Hangzhou celebrated Hilton’s 100th anniversary in May, a milestone that was commemorated with a unique evening celebration on the hotel’s helicopter platform along with 50 couples — just one more example of the distinctive events we can host and accommodate on our property.

Maximilian Pleyer:

Hongqiao Jin Jiang is under the Jin Jiang brand which has more than 100 years of history showcasing the Oriental culture of hospitality and service.

Its caring, dedicated and gentle style makes our service different from other international chain hotels.

We are awarded a 2019 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, the most preferred business hotel and MICE hotel of the year by several mainstream media.

Since the hotel team is very experienced in catering, we are able to offer tailor-made service and promise a 24-hour response to MICE clients. Another selling point for Hongqiao Jin Jiang is the extensive meeting facilities, including an 830-square-meter pillarless ballroom and 10 intimate meeting venues.

Someone said the latest hospitality revolution happened in the digital age. What do you think the Internet-plus economy will bring? Do you use social media?

Stephan Krause:

Shanghai is a city that is trendy, international and fast moving.

Moving forward, the hospitality industry needs to make more advances to cultivate different customer touch points in today’s digital world.

Social media plays an important part in the hospitality business as it increases awareness, improves and maintains a high level of customer service, while communicating directly with guests.

We use several platforms — WeChat, Weibo and Instagram — to reach out to our targeted audience with our content-driven messages.

Daniel Muhor:

Computers, the Internet, social media, smartphones and tablets have changed not only the hospitality industry but our whole life. They have brought new ways of communication and exchange.

WeChat, Weibo, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, price comparison sites and hotel rating platforms are radically changing the hospitality industry, and more and more guests look at hotel photos and reviews online before they book. This makes the web a showcase and the basis for many travel decisions.

Internet information overload is a daily syndrome, which ultimately can lead to more questions rather than answers, therefore social networks are tending to always take over.

Jan Jansen:

The booming Internet economy has brought dramatic changes in consumer habits — more personalized and customized.

As such, a company’s product portfolio should not only meet different consumer tastes but highlight the brand’s identity as well.

Digital innovation has, therefore, brought about a transformation in the Hilton Group’s marketing strategy. It is now more digital-oriented, serves as a bridge for communication and as a bond between the brand and consumers.

The idea is to satisfy and even exceed guests’ expectations.

Hilton released its first Chinese Hilton Honors app in China, which is a very valuable tool that gives exposure to our hotels and appeals to more potential consumers.

In collaboration with Tencent, Hilton has also launched a mini program that introduces 19 Hilton hotels in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The Hilton link is another practical digital tool to improve efficiency and bring convenience to consumers.

Conrad Hangzhou has introduced the app to enhance customers’ digital experience, providing exclusive service to guests. Social media has become an important channel for communication and shopping. Consequently, cooperation with social media platforms, such as Little Red Book and TikTok, truly brings great exposure to the hotel.

It certainly helps deliver a distinctive and inspirational brand image to target customers.

Conrad Hangzhou has definitely seized each precious opportunity to be involved in the digital era.

Maximilian Pleyer:

Digital and mobile seems to be the leading trend, not only for hospitality, but also most other industries as well.

Especially with 5G coming soon, this trend is expected to accelerate. Hongqiao Jin Jiang established its official WeChat, Weibo, Youku as well as TikTok accounts which allow immediate interaction between the hotel and customers. Besides that, our hotel website is also designed to be mobile phone friendly.

Recently the hotel has upgraded our Internet and WiFi speed and placed a WeChat printer at lobby to please the most tech-savvy of guests and their need to share their experiences with friends and family through social networks.

Especially for MICE customers, we worked with an intelligent robot company which can offer a robot to assist clients’ events and meetings, such as check-in service, party host and information distributor.

The general manager is in charge of providing strategic direction and overseeing daily operations. What do you think is the most important trait or skill? What is an example of the most cheerful or stressful situation you have ever experienced?

Stephan Krause:

Passion. The most important trait for a general manager is to be passionate, caring for internal and external customers, cooperating with the team to create memorable stays for external guests, delivering clear directions to team members, coaching in a positive way and offering necessary support for our Sofitel Heartists to learn and grow.

There are millions of sparkling moments in the past decade in my life.

It touches me every single time a guest mentions any good experience with a name of our staff member, or even just a small touching note left in the guest room.

It is also more than delightful for me to have seen some of my former team members grown up from being green-birds who just graduated from universities and through all their hard work become senior managers, or even having some of them becoming general managers as well.

Daniel Muhor:

There are many highs and lows. Of course the obvious highs would be achieving all KPIs (key performance indicators) and there are the obvious lows of not achieving those KPIs.

Adding to that, what excites me is seeing the development of my team, watching them climb up the ladder and knowing you played a part in that gives me great satisfaction. My most important asset is my people.

If we stress one great trait you must have is to not show any signs of stress and to remain always be in control knowing what move you need to make next in order to continue to guide the business in the right direction, and that skill to react to a situation is also one of the most important.

It is also extremely important to respect and adapt to the culture you are working with as it’s not uncommon to move every two years to a different culture with different values.

Jan Jansen:

In today’s digital era, as a general manager you can easily be absorbed by data, guest insights and social media comments.
This information overload is also happening in the hotel industry.

Yet, in my view, the critical aspect of a successful general manager is still one’s ability to build connections with guests and team members.
As such, I spend most of my time on the floor to experience what is happening in the hotel — meet with guests, create concepts for catering and events, observe the operation and listen to suggestions from the team on how to make improvements.

Coming from the Netherlands, I have been fortunate to work in many hotel properties in Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Hong Kong and — most recently — Hangzhou. Regardless of where you work, the essence of the job is still the same: make time for guests and team members and be visible as much as possible.

One of my career highlights has certainly been the opening of Conrad Hangzhou.

Opening hotel properties is exceptionally demanding and often referred to as a “life-changing” experience. Having started as a one-man show in April 2018, it is extremely rewarding to successfully build a team of 340 and — together — to position Conrad Hangzhou as one of the leading luxury hotel properties in the city.

Maximilian Pleyer:

I believe that the most important traits of a general manager, among the many talent needed, are: a passion for service, good people skills, analytical ability to identify the key issues quickly, the ability to make fast and smart decisions, give clear direction and support the team to move forward, being proactive and think strategically — always keeping the big picture and goal in mind.

Last, but not least, a general manager is someone who is able to identify talent in his team and be fully committed to developing them and helping them grow and have a brighter future.