Travel Daily Face-to-Face: Michal Zitek, General Manager, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel Bangkok
Michal Zitek, General Manager, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel Bangkok
1) What are the key selling features of your hotel?
Imperial Queen’s Park is proud to represent impeccable Thai hospitality. From the moment of arrival in our grand lobby, our guests immediately notice the charm and excellence that represents an Imperial hotel. Imperial Queen’s Park is Bangkok’s largest hotel and boasts 1,251 guest rooms, five restaurants, two bars, the Imperial Spa and 27 conference meeting rooms including our Grand Hall and Rainbow rooms that can respectfully accommodate 1,100 and 550 person banquets all in a prime Sukhumvit location
2) What are your main guest source markets, and are you noticing any key trends in terms of your business and nationality mix?
Imperial Queen’s Park is predominantly a corporate and MICE Hotel supported by international, regional and Thai based enterprises. Imperial Queen’s Park is seeing an increase in travel from ASEAN region and the lead-time for MICE and larger corporate groups seems to be much shorter than before. Leisure business and online business continue to show strong growth whilst the corporate segments remain stable with only slight growth
3) How has your hotel performed so far this year, and what is your outlook for 2011?
The hotel has shown stable performance throughout the year. Q1 returned a very strong result in rooms and F&B performance. Q2 remained buoyant but was not quite as vibrant during the lead-up to the national elections. Q3 is forecast to be more stable with some positive pick-up being seen all the way through until the end of the year. . Overall the hotel should be well on line to complete the year with occupancy in the mid-to-high 60% range
4) Bangkok is currently seeing a huge influx of new hotel room supply; what impact do you think this will have on the sector, and specifically on Imperial Queens Park?
Fortunately Bangkok will always hold interest for international business and leisure travellers. This means that there are always new opportunities for travel into the Kingdom. Increased visitor numbers do allow for new room supply but not to the extent of so many hotel developments as we are seeing now. Unfortunately this oversupply situation creates a challenge to overall hotel rate yield and in some cases a re-calculation of budgeted rates. On the other hand, this situation generates more creativity in terms of packaging and product offerings. In general, price is important, but I think a majority of visitors to Thailand also look for quality, value and a positive experience from their stay regardless of their purpose for travel. This allows for Imperial Queen’s Park to price correctly in relation to our product standard and respond with full-service options, inclusions and a better stay experience
5) What new developments can we expect from your hotel over the next 12 months?
2011 has been a year of evolution for Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel. We have commenced our refurbishment plans and by December we will have completed a THB550 million (US$17.8 million) investment into improvements across the hotel guest rooms, restaurants and public areas. The next 12 months will see the launch of a very exciting concept restaurant and the continuation of the rooms renovation and redecoration works. With 1,251 rooms, it is not necessarily a fast project but through the graduated phasing of all of the works, we will be able to return a renewed hotel with no disruption or inconvenience to our guests.
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