Singaporean Kent Zhu, vice president, Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts, has his hands busy lately as he manages the company's assets in China.

He began his career in China in 1985 by joining a local hotel in Beijing immediately after graduating from university. He joined the Shangri-La group in 1990 working at the China World Hotel in Beijing. Later he worked in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur for almost 10 years before rejoining Shangri-La in Singapore. Prior to being appointed to his present post in early 2007, he was vice president marketing for China.

How does Shangri-La differentiate itself from other top-level hotels around Greater China?
A warm and exceptional service is the group's defining feature. Our staff are dedicated to making every guest feel valued and special by delivering a unique hospitality experience built on time-honored Asian values, delivered with modern efficiency.

The name Shangri-La was inspired by James Hilton's legendary novel Lost Horizon, which depicted a tranquil haven in the mountains of Tibet. Today, Shangri-La stands as a synonym for paradise and the name encapsulates the genuine serenity and graceful service for which Shangri-La has come to be recognized.

Shangri-La hotels are luxurious without being pretentious. Hallmarks of the group's properties include grand lobbies, which often overlook expansive gardens, decorated with marble flooring, crystal chandeliers and fine Asian art. Guestrooms are equally luxurious and are equipped with everything a business or leisure traveler requires. All Shangri-La properties feature extensive facilities and the highest standard of cuisine in restaurants and catering. Many of our hotels have the largest ballrooms in the city.

Asia-based and Asian-owned, Shangri-La carefully selects staff who personify such intrinsic qualities of Asian hospitality as generosity, grace and sincerity. Each Shangri-La hotel, wherever its location then creates an environment in which staff is encouraged to interact warmly and authentically with guests, thus producing Shangri-La's renowned Asian hospitality experience.

How do you see domestic Chinese travelers shaping Shangri-La's business over the next five years?
Since its first entry to China in 1984 Shangri-La has benefited from the country's fast economy growth. Today, the group has 24 hotels in operation in 19 cities in mainland China, with more than 60% of our business coming from the PRC market - especially in the secondary cities. With the strong growth of China's outbound travel, over the next five years we believe we will be welcoming Chinese travelers in Shangri-La hotels in the USA, France, UK, Germany, and other parts of the world.

What are some of the challenges to operating a hospitality business in China?
"Great hotels are made by great employees, not by crystal chandeliers or expensive carpets." This belief is strongly held by Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts and is also the most important challenge to operating a hospitality business in China.

In order to achieve this Shangri-La translates the belief to a firm commitment to employee development. The process begins with careful selection -staff are "hired for attitude, trained for skills" - providing a fertile foundation for the Shangri-La philosophies to be embraced. Shangri-La then invests heavily in training, perhaps more than any other hotel group, with intensive and ongoing coaching for all staff at our 54 hotels and resorts.

The group then retains its high caliber staff by creating an environment whereby employees may achieve their personal and career goals; Shangri-La has one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry. Such dedication will be increasingly important as the group's workforce grows from 28,000 to an expected 50,000 by 2010.

What type of training and incentives do you offer your staff?
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts offers many training programs to its employees. The focal region for training programme is China.

In December 2004, the group opened the Shangri-La Academy, Beijing. The Academy offers a number of certificate programs and a diploma program open to both existing Shangri-La employees as well as to students from the general public. These certificate programs are in culinary arts, food and beverage service, front office, housekeeping, laundry, engineering, training and development, and human resources management. All the courses have an institutional learning component and sequential on-the-the-job training in the hotels. In addition to the Academy student body, students are also currently studying the joint program at the Sun Yat-Sen University - it is anticipated that 500 public students will have been trained by 2008.

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts launched a proprietary sales and marketing training programme in 2005 – "STAR" (Shangri-La Training for Aggressive Revenues.) More than US$3 million will be spent over four years to STAR-train 2,000 sales and marketing employees in hotels and worldwide sales offices. The first tailor-made sales education programme for Shangri-La, STAR incorporates the essence of Shangri-La's corporate culture in teaching essential selling skills, negotiation, strategic sales management, and sales leadership and motivation skills.

E-learning courses for management staff were launched with eCornell in April 2005. There are 57 online courses available in five areas: human resources management, management essentials, hospitality and foodservice management; strategic management, and financial management. Three thousand spaces for employees will be offered over the next five years.

The Shangri-La group established the Mobile Learning Centre in 2003, which offers a wide variety of leadership and management programs conducted by in-house and external trainers in different hubs in strategic locations. This provides employees continuous learning opportunities within the group.

The group retains its high caliber staff by creating an environment in which employees can achieve their personal and career goals: as a result Shangri-La has one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry.

How are you using Internet and email marketing to attract more guests from the business and MICE sectors?
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts unveiled its new look website at shangri-la.com on June 4, 2007. Featuring a completely re-vamped design and layout, the website also offers expanded content, added site options and enhanced navigation usability.

The website re-design provides online visitors with even greater insight into the Shangri-La brand, a critical imperative given the group's rapid expansion into new Western markets.

The most dramatic transformation greeting web visitors is the extensive usage of emotive and striking imagery with a cinematic presentation. Hundreds of new hotel photographs, with Asian motifs in the border designs, enhance visitors' knowledge of the hotels and their distinctive Asian spirit.

What type of corporate social responsibility initiatives is the hotel implementing to ensure guest safety, decrease business graft, and be more environmentally-friendly?
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts has launched a two-year development strategy to enhance its corporate social responsibility activities. A corporate CSR Committee, spearheaded by the group's chief operating officer, has been established to continue to fulfill the group's responsibilities in five key areas: the environment, employees and the community, health and safety, supply chain management, and stakeholder relations.

In the area of environmental sustainability, the group's focus is primarily in five areas: climate change, ozone depletion, water use management, waste disposal management, and indoor air quality. Shangri-La is ramping up energy conservation initiatives with the aim of reducing the 2006 group wide energy consumption figures by 12 per cent by the end of 2008. Currently, the group practices a wide array of environmentally friendly measures including, for example, fitting all guestrooms with water saving devices in taps and showers as well as using energy-saving lamps in more than half the group's guestrooms.

Shangri-La was an industry leader in initiating environmental procedures even before its hotels began to receive ISO14001 certification, the international Environmental Management System Standard. The group has an extensive list of internally developed environmental best practices that all its hotels have implemented, these are then inspected to monitor for compliance. The inspection results affect each hotel's annual performance and development review scores.

In addressing impacts on climate change, the group is working on reducing carbon dioxide emissions per room night by 6.7 kg, as compared to 2006 figures. Shangri-La has three broad methods for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases: through existing systems and processes, the use of new technologies and alternative energy sources, and by building more efficient buildings.

Wherever possible in new hotels, Shangri-La seeks to save energy and resources through a variety of techniques; for example, by rainwater harvesting, hot water production using solar panels or heat pumps, and improvements in building envelope design to reduce heat loss or heat gain, as well as air filtration.

In other areas of corporate social responsibility, Shangri-La has established food safety benchmarks with the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point System) certifications in the hotels. Twenty-two Shangri-La properties are now HACCP certified, and all current hotels are anticipated to be awarded the certificate by 2008. Suppliers are expected to be part of the system of ensuring that only safe, high quality food is served. In the future the group will be expanding supply chain initiatives to other areas of procurement.

What are your advertising and marketing campaigns focused on for 2008?
In 2008, we will continue with our Heaven and Earth image campaign for both Print and television advertising. We will also be focusing on our MICE product with advertising highlighting Shangri-La's seamless event organization and attention to detail in the delivery of services.

(average: 4.00 out of 5)

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One Response to “Combining Heaven And Earth At Shangri-La In China”

1. By Joy C. Sulit – March 2nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm

   very inspiring…i'm doing a module for my staff regarding enligthen hospitality, can't help but to look at your site.

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