As general manager of the Hilton Hefei, Luc Bollen has been instrumental in the final development phase of the Hilton Hefei, playing a pivotal role in the hotel's opening. With a career in the hospitality industry spanning over twenty years and four continents he has a strong focus in food and beverage and a passion for good food and wine, travel, and rugby.

Hilton is known for its cautious development and currently owns only five hotels in mainland China mainly located in municipalities and some flourishing regions along the coast. But Hilton Hefei is located in a second-tier city of central China. On what kind of market development strategy are you basing this?
Hilton has been present in China for nearly 20 years now, and played a pioneering role. Today in line with the central governments desire to prioritize development of inner country regions and second tier cities is an opportune moment to join such a drive and our presence in the fast growing city of Hefei underlines this.

Compared with Hefei，some other second-tier cities may have more advantages in the areas of economy, transportation and tourist resources. What makes Hefei especially attract for Hilton's investment?
The decision to open a hotel in a specific location depends on several factors. A major factor is to have the right partner, Hong Kong YuanYi Group is certainly proving to be one such - we compliment each other with our brand strength and their knowledge and strong presence in the Hefei market. Such strategic partnerships are a driving force in deciding which city is attractive.

With fast economic development and a location near the famous Huangshan Mountain scenic spots, how do you position your hotel's source market? Which group will you focus on in the future?
The recent opening of the highway towards the Huangshan mountain area adds a new opportunity to the city of Hefei, both for the leisure and MICE sectors and we are working closely together with the Tourism Boards to maximize and spread this opportunity. We can foresee in the near future a market t shift towards the leisure segment - although Hefei's quick economic growth will still keep corporate business as the main segment.

Compared with big international cities like Shanghai and Beijing, Hefei has preserved more of the traditional Chinese culture and ideas. How do you balance the relationship between local features and the international standardization of Hilton?
Hilton is recognized as a leading brand by business and leisure travelers, consistency in product and service delivery are the key to this. However this by no means stops us from integrating local features and focusing on the needs of our key customers, personalized approach and service delivery is an equal part of our brand promise as are international brand standards. There is a perfect complement between both. Our hotel is more than just a place for the out-of-town travelers to patronize, we strive to be an integral part of the community, our restaurants and leisure facilities are construed especially with the local customer in mind.

While operating a hospitality business in Hefei, how do you take advantage of the international client resources of Hilton?
Surely one of the strengths of an international leading brand as ours is loyalty. With millions of travelers worldwide being part of the award winning Honors program we can communicate directly with our guests, and have tailor made approaches ready for them, equally our international and regional corporate guests can benefit from the worldwide diversity of all our hotels and family of brands.

How does Hilton Hefei differentiate itself from other hotels around the area, especially in the MICE sector?
With Hilton Meetings and our new feature POG (Personalized Groups Online) we offer new and inventive programs facilitating the organization of meetings and conventions. Couple that to great hardware offering unrivalled facilities in the area, and our focus on service delivery and a cocktail for success is in the making. The focus remains on consistent, personalized service delivery to our guests and taking the hassles and hurdles of organizing big events away from them. POG is a fantastic tool, whereby we create for organizers their personalized website, not only allowing and facilitating the booking process, but equally allowing organizers to communicate, inform and keep delegates up to date of all happenings.

With increasing numbers of tourists and company's bookers looking for hotel discount information through websites, how are you using email marketing and Internet strategies to strengthen your online operations?
Rate integrity is the key here, consumers will only get confused and frustrated if rates vary from website to website, as such we have a best rate guarantee on Hilton.com which makes it easy for the consumers, they will know that there is no need to spend endless hours looking for possible bargains, on Hilton.com they will always find the best rate. Such a promise makes our websites consumer friendly.

We will further strengthen in the coming year our online strategy by improving our Chinese language website and booking engine.

Have there been any challenges since Hilton Hefei opened in 2007? If so, how did you face them?
Sure, every hotel opening has it challenges, with our owners we have a very capable project team in place, which over the opening year assists us rectifying all technical challenges and perfecting the product.

Shortage of qualified labor force is surely the other main challenge, as such we have employed a vast number of enthusiastic graduates and trained them from scratch into our company's service philosophy, a major but extremely rewarding experience.

Is your management group mainly from international or local markets? What are some of the challenges and experiences in training local employees?
Our managers are both international and from different regions in China, our approach is to find the right person for the job, regardless his or her origin. As I mentioned shortage in the local workforce was a challenge but we compensated for this by intensive training of young local graduates. Our main challenge is that all the youngsters have their own ambitions and dreams, and it will be our task to fulfill those ambitions and dreams in order to keep them growing with us. We do this through regular reviews and structured career paths.

How does your hotel cooperate with local government, tourism departments and other enterprises in the hospitality industry?
Our cooperation is great, we just hosted with the Tourism Board a familiarization trip for several key operators in order to promote the Huangshan Mountains. With local government we worked successfully in 2007 on several investment fairs and initiatives. As the leading hotel in the city, our commitment to sustain and support the city's economic growth is undeniable.

What type of corporate social responsibility programs will you have in 2008?
We formed a partnership with Project Hope in 2007, whereby we support 35 children through their education, by financial and training support, we also offer them career opportunities upon graduation, we have extended this in 2008 and now, with support from other corporate partners, this can grow such even further and larger.

(average: 5.00 out of 5)

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