Face-to-Face: Jean-Christophe Moreaux
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Travel Daily chats with Belmond’s regional director of sales & marketing for Asia, Jean-Christophe Moreaux, about the impact of the recent rebranding from Orient-Express…
Q) Orient-Express recently rebranded to Belmond; what impact do you expect this to have on your Asian operations?
Orient-Express has been operating successfully for 37 years and was embracing a global collection of 45 hotels, trains and river cruises.
Over the years, we’ve enjoyed strong recognition of many individual brands, and a high percentage of repeaters at individual products.However, we realised we had a below par percentage of repeat clients across the company. Our previous strategy was focusing pretty much on each individual product name and we never promoted Orient-Express as a brand name.
Two reasons for that; Orient-Express is first and foremost an iconic train, and most importantly, we did not own it. We were actually leasing this name from the French National Railways. Hence the need to shift our strategy and Belmond now gives us one collective voice. We foresee an higher cross-sell rate in the company that will be beneficial to our Asian products.
Our company will also conduct a global advertising campaign for the first time ever, with the objective to grow our number of clients.
Q) Which Asian products/markets are currently doing well for you, and which need more attention?
Our Asian products have been delivering robust revenues and EBITDA growth in the past six years. Belmond Jimbaran Puri in Bali has been our best contributor for many years, however with the recent boom of tourism in Myanmar, Belmond Governor’s Residence has taken the lead. We find that Laos is in the shadow of Myanmar for the last two years though, and Belmond La Residence Phou Vao in Luang Prabang needs more attention than before. Belmond Napasai in Koh Samui depends much on Thai politics. Our train our cruise experiences are as popular as ever and Belmond La Residence d’Angkor in Siem Reap is performing very well too.
Geographically, Australia performance is outstanding while China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea are growing fast. Japan is pretty much stable over the years. We wish to develop the Thai market specifically for our Koh Samui property, and are looking to step on the Indian market.
Q) How well known do you think the Orient-Express products are in Asia, and what impact do you expect the Belmond rebrand to have?
We see this rebranding as a great opportunity. It is fair to say OE did not have a strong legacy in Asia, with the exception of the famous Eastern & Oriental Train. Moving forward, the communication and promotion will focus mostly on Belmond, and should allow our existing clients to ‘connect the dots’ between all of our products around the world. Guests of Belmond Cipriani in Venice or Belmond Hotel Monasterio in Cusco or Belmond Safaris in Botswana will be more clearly exposed to our Asian products and may want to chose a Belmond product over the competition when travelling East.
Q) How much of your business is currently driven by Asian guests, and do you expect this to change in the future?
The development of the Asian markets is key to our business. It has been a priority of mine since I arrived in the region in 2007. APAC room revenues doubled between 2008 and 2013. Nowadays, one out of five of our clients lives in Asia (it used to be one in 10 in 2008) and we expect this ratio to further increase towards one out of four, as we only started tapping into the Chinese market and have implemented many actions which will deliver higher numbers of guests. Company is also currently looking at the best way to develop India, a market totally new to us. Promoting Belmond as a global brand as opposed to the local product brand is an opportunity to grow our overall business from Asia as we all know Asians crave for luxury brands. A better brand recognition in Asia will also benefit our entire portfolio.
Q) What further development plans do you have in Asia; and are there any key markets you’re focusing on? China for example?
One of the goals of Belmond is to make our company more attractive to property owners, as we look to expand our portfolio by seeking management contracts. Our development team is currently studying opportunities in various part of the world, including Asia. A clear objective of ours is to position the brand in Capital cities. As far as we are concerned in Asia, the majority of our guests travels through Bangkok or Singapore, yet we have no property in either place. A Belmond hotel in Shanghai would also definitely give us a nice additional leverage on our marketing in China.
Q) And can we expect to see any new boat or train products in the near future?
Belmond launched a new ship (Belmond Orcaella) last July in Myanmar and I can announce we are working on a new train project in Ireland. There is another train project ‘cooking’ not too far from us here in Asia, but I can’t talk about it yet.
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