With two airports in Shanghai, travel in and out of the cosmopolitan city is quite simple for stressed business travelers. And it's even simpler if the destination is the Shanghai Marriott Hotel Hongqiao, only minutes away from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. Robert F. Fabiano is general manager of the hotel, and with over 30 years working with Marriott International he is building the hotel into a China MICE destination.

How is Marriott Hongqiao positioning itself in the local hotel market?
Marriott Hongqiao is an attractive hotel for the business traveler conducting work along the Western Development Zone Corridor, while also attractive to Mainland China travelers arriving to Shanghai via Hongqiao Airport. We are close to many of the Shanghai offices for multinational companies, providing an easy distance between those corporate travelers from out-of-Shanghai and their Shanghai offices. For example, we are near the Zi Zhu Science Zone, where research and development centers have been set up for major companies such as Intel, Microsoft, SanDisk, and Coca-Cola.

Group Meeting business travelers as well are particularly attracted to our location in the Hongqiao Development Zone and close proximity to the airport, as well as our easy access to Downtown and its entertainment and dining venues.

What sort of changes have you implemented since taking over in your new position?
In a little less than a year, we have strengthened our position as a hotel that offers genuine personalized service as well as a clean and productive work environment for our many repeat business travelers. Our staff knows that we care about our employees and this philosophy in turn, you can see, rubs off on how they approach and deal with our hotel guests as well as with each other.

What type of benefits do you gain from your close proximity to the airport in Shanghai?
Being within 10 minutes of Hongqiao Airport, we offer a close and convenient location for mainland China companies to gather in Shanghai for a quick one or two-day meeting. Additionally those business and leisure travelers who fly into Shanghai only to fly out again through Hongqiao Airport find us a great location for their one or two-night stopover.

For your meetings and conferences, what sort of facilities do you have in place and how many staff are responsible for this section?
We have outstanding meeting facilities that incorporate great flexibility and proximity with each other. Our biggest venue, for example, is the Grand Ballroom, which is 745 square meters, can sit up to 50 round tables and can also be divisible into three smaller rooms. In addition, we have the Executive Ballroom, and 8 multi-purpose and multi-sized function rooms for business meetings and events.

We also have an outstanding Event Sales and Services team who are all very responsive, flexible and accommodating in making every event into something special. Our Event Planning staff has 8 individuals who deal with Meeting Planners from the moment of contact to the successful completion of each event. Our Service staff has been renowned for their service and hospitality, and our Banquet Culinary staff has been recognized for their quality offerings.

How do you integrate Shanghai's local attractions with your hotel's identity?
As this hotel caters mainly to business travelers, we identify as a business hotel rather than as a tourist hotel. However, local attractions are a quick taxi ride away, and the Downtown, Bund and Pudong areas are easily accessible by way of the Yan'an Expressway.

How do you see Shanghai's hotel sector developing in the next 5 years?
Shanghai's hotel market has grown rapidly over the past two years, adding over 14,000 five-star and four-star rooms to the market, as well as several thousand rooms in the budget-to-economy end. This will continue for the next couple of years, though at a slower pace. In the meantime, we have seen a softening of demand, particularly during the shoulder months of June, July and August, as well as during holiday periods.

This, however, is an opportunity for our hotel to set ourselves apart from the competition by offering great service and clean productive products and amenities. In addition, we have taken this opportunity to begin a major rooms renovation featuring new Philips 32" LCD Televisions and new "JacPak" technology for personal electronics use, integrating MP3 players, iPods, DVDs and more. It has been a very exciting year for Marriott Hongqiao.

More hotel bookers in China are now getting their research and information online. How is Marriott Hongqiao utilizing email marketing, Web campaigns, and new media to reach the executives who now rely on these mediums?
Marriott.com is a fantastic web site that is easy to navigate and book reservations worldwide. We have seen rapid usage of online channels, and through our MARSHA system, we receive more than 25% of our bookings from online, which include our hotel website, travel agents and other online booking channels. Bookings directly from Marriott.com account for 60% of these online bookings, and our total online bookings have increased 1.7% from the previous year.

Marriott Hongqiao's Communications Department has also done a great job in identifying a quality and personalized web site from which to feature our wide variety of Food and Beverage outlets, including the many holiday promotions we undertake each year. In addition we do a monthly email sending of hotel promotions through a database of more than 80,000 subscribers.

What type of community outreach and corporate social responsibility programs is Marriott Hongqiao involved with in Shanghai?
It is not only an obligation for Marriott Hongqiao, but for the entire Marriott Cluster Family in Shanghai to be an active part of the community. As our cluster family grows (we are expecting to expand to a total of 11 properties in the area), we'll find ourselves more and more in a position of leadership in the community. We are involved in a number of community outreach programs at the moment, namely Safe Kids – a safety education program, and Toys for Tots – where we collect and deliver donated toys to the local orphanage. For the charity Operation Smile, we donated funds to provide treatments' for children with birth defects and have provided volunteer translators for the visiting physians who participate in Operation Smile.

Marriott International is also very committed to environmental protection and we as part of the cluster group and as an individual hotel have utilized many energy-saving methods, including taking part in Marriott's Environmentally Conscious Hospitality Operations (ECHO) program.

If you are able to only say five words to a hotel booker or meeting planner who is thinking of choosing your hotel, what would those five words be?
Flexible, Value, Productive, Comfortable and Gracious

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