Edward E. Snoeks is a hotel expert in Asia. With more than 17 years of experience in hotel management, Snoeks is now working as the vice president of Hotel Operations at Hong Kong Parkview Group, overseeing the group’s luxury hotel brand Hotel Éclat. The group is now running a boutique hotel in Taipei and preparing the launch of a new hotel in Beijing. Snoeks talks to Retail in Asia about the group’s experience in the hospitality industry in the Greater China region. He also shares with RIA how retailers and hotels can complement each other.
RIA: How did Hong Kong Parkview tap into the boutique hotel market in Taipei?
Edward E. Snoeks (ES): The motivation behind the hotel business model for Hong Kong Parkview came from a passion for good hotel management. Our chairman George Wong loves the hotel business and so the group purchased a property that was the formerLe Petit Sherwood hotel, Taipei, which had about 62 rooms. Although there were some debate about the direction of the business at the beginning, because of the group’s collective passion as hoteliers, hindsight has proved that we made the right decision. Hotel Éclat has become a very unique hotel in Taipei. The hotel is very stylish and fashionable and it gives our guests a unique and personal experience. Taipei has a number of boutique hotels, but Hotel Éclat is one of a kind.
RIA: What makes Hotel Éclat so special? Can you give us some examples?
ES: Hotel Éclat in Taipei is very high end. The hotel is designed by Charles Robertson of LRF designers Limited. It is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. All 60 guest rooms are luxuriously equipped with state-of-the-art luxury amenities, such as Bang & Olufsen CD and audio systems, Nespresso coffee machines, Montblanc stationary, Philippe Starck desk chairs and Riedel glassware. More importantly, the hotel features many fantastic art pieces and furniture collections, which makes our hotel very different from our competitors. We have two Dali sculptures, an Andy Warhol painting and more special pieces which are from our chairman’s personal collection. You can always see elements of this unique design experience even in our lobby where you can have afternoon tea while admiring these priceless pieces of art. You can see beautiful people coming there to enjoy the beautiful tea.
RIA: Hotel Éclat has been open in Taipei for a while. Do you see any challenges in your business?
ES: Commercially, our hotel is doing very well, but there is always room to improve. Our guest rooms are almost always fully booked. The only challenge in our case is that because of the product we offer it is challenging to make a profit margin to compare with that of a large hotel brand which might run a hotel with 200-300 guest rooms. These are the constraints of a boutique hotel and we have always been aware of these constraints.
RIA: A new Hotel Éclat will soon be opened at Parkview Green – a commercial complex project in Beijing. Can you talk us through this project?
ES: Parkview Green comprises four buildings enclosed by an environmental shield – which is made of glass walls and ETFE roof. The building is LEED pre-certified. With this unique environment shield, a micro- climate is created in the structure, so that the harsh winter or the very hot summer in Beijing would not become an issue within the environment. The project is comprised of 50,000-square-metre luxury retail spaces (which contain 99 shops), 80,000-square-metre office spaces and the 100–room Hotel Éclat. The hotel sits on the top floors of Parkview Green. The terrace structure enclosed by the glass walls allows hotel rooms to have more space and possibility. We have not decided on the grand opening day for the hotel yet, but hopefully, it can be opened in early September.
RIA: We don’t see many of these commercial complexes in Hong Kong. However, in China, there is a trend for commercial complexes consisting of retail, office and hotel spaces. Why follow this trend?
ES: For us, this trend commercially makes sense. In Hong Kong, space is limited and that’s the reason for the city to have less of these complexes. But in China, commercial complexes allow for more possibilities in terms of space. It provides a lot of space that can be used to entertain our clients.
RIA: In China, especially in Beijing, the hotel market is very competitive. Some high-end hotels will have marketing campaigns or VIP programmes for high spenders, offering these customers special retail tie-in promotions. One example is private shopping sections for VIPs. What are the benefits this trend brings to the retailers and the hoteliers?
ES: Tie-in promotions can of course bring lots of benefits to either retail brands or hotels. Products that we offer can attract certain types of customers. And if we are able to secure the right retail outlets in our mall, we can tie in with them. The hotel and shops can complement each other – whether it is private shopping, or shopping assistance provided by the hotel. We can also have certain brand’s items ready in rooms for guests. As we are also the landlord of the shopping malls, maybe we can negotiate with the shops to offer guests special opening hours to use their facilities. We can do lots of things.
RIA: Can you share an example of tie-in promotion of Hotel Éclat?
ES: We have not yet decided on any tie-ins for our Hotel in Beijing, as it is too early to do so, but for our Hotel in Taipei we work with brands like Salvatore Ferragamo, or with our neighbours in Taipei, Louis Vuitton whose products we use in our reward programme for Corporate bookings. We have also worked with Sweden’s Hästens Beds in the past. We aim to work with a selection of top quality brands for Éclat Hotels.
RIA: If retailers want to work with hotels, what should they do to start?
ES: If retailers want to initiate joint promotions, they should contact the marketing or public relations department of the hotel. In general, the retailer and the hotel will enter a barter agreement, which does not involve any monetary transaction. If retailers want to open shops in hotels, they should contact hotel owners or leasing offices directly. However, retailers should remember that any of these initiatives should allow retailers and hotels to complement each other so every party will benefit from them. They have to understand each other – a luxury brand would not open an outlet in a two-star hotel.
RIA: What are Hotel Éclat’s requirements?
ES: We don’t have a complicated corporate structure on top of us, so we are very flexible. We take personal experience as our belief and we do lots of art related events, so we are always interested in something related to the art world. We would be interested in working with well-established brands. But the most important thing for any marketing campaign is to enhance the hotel’s image.
Hotel Éclat Taipei, a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, is situated in the heart of Da-An District in downtown Taipei. To learn more about the hotel, visit Hotel Éclat.
Parkview Green, developed by Parkview Group, is situated between
CEO Talking Shop is the Retail in Asia section devoted to interviews with brand CEOs and retail industry leaders.