Face-to-Face: Winnie Chiu, Dorsett Hospitality
Today, Travel Daily chats with Winnie Chiu, President & Executive Director of Dorsett Hospitality International…
1) Dorsett Hotels International recently rebranded from Kosmopolito. What was the reasoning behind this switch?
We felt that the name ‘Dorsett’ has more consumer sentiments and moreover, the group’s first hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Dorsett Regency Kuala Lumpur, is already established in the marketplace. And to leverage on this and in order to accord the group a better brand awareness and collectively, strengthen our presence in the hospitality industry, it was the best strategy to adopt and to change our group name to Dorsett Hospitality International.
2) How has this move been received by customers and the trade?
We unveiled our new brand name and architecture during ITB Asia held in Singapore in October and had a similar event in Shanghai in October. Overall, I would say that the rebranding and brand architecture is well received both by consumers and industry players. We have aligned our brands to three brands under Dorsett Hospitality and these are d.Collection which are our boutique hotels, Dorsett Hotels & Resorts with two sub-brands – Dorsett (mid-scale) and Dorsett Grand (upscale) and Silka Hotels (value-led). We currently have 16 operating hotels in Hong Kong, China and Malaysia with another eight in the pipeline to be opened in Singapore, China, Hong Kong and United Kingdom within the next 12 to 24 months.
3) As a Hong Kong-based hotelier, China must be a key market. What plans do you have to expand into China, and to target Chinese guests?
We have and will continue to actively pursue our ‘Chinese Wallet’ strategy; i.e. opening hotels in location where Chinese travellers will travel to. And because we are an Asia-based company headquartered in Hong Kong, we are in a much better position to capture more of the Chinese consumers. The number of people travelling internationally from China has jumped from 58 million in 2010 to 72 million in 2012 and we believe this trend will continue. According to UN World Tourism Organisation, the top destinations in the world are Paris, London, New York, Mediterranean, Turkey and Singapore. To this end, we will be expanding beyond Asia with our first property, Dorsett London, which is scheduled to open in 2014, to be followed by our second property which we recently acquired and this is located at Aldgate. As far as catering to the domestic travellers in Mainland China, we currently have three properties and they are Dorsett Shanghai and Dorsett Wuhan. Grand Dorsett Chengdu will be opening Q1 of 2013 and there will be another two more hotels coming up, i.e. Dorsett Zhongshan and Dorsett Grand Zhuji, both scheduled to open in 2013.
4) This year you will move into Singapore for the first time with the opening of the Dorsett Singapore. Do you have any plans to expand your footprint in this market?
Dorsett Singapore is scheduled to open Q1 of 2013. It is prominently located at the junction of New Bridge Road and Cantonment Road with 285 rooms, and sits on top of the Outram MRT station. We are constantly on the lookout for good investments and acquisitions and of course there may be another property in Singapore in future, as I believe there is still a shortage of rooms in Singapore. However, Singapore is similar to Hong Kong; in seeking out good deals, we just have to wait and keep on looking.
5) What further expansion can we expect to see from Dorsett in 2013?
As I have mentioned earlier, we will have another eight more hotels opening within the next 12 to 24 months.
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