Hotelier reveals winning formula

After nearly three years as General Manager of the Crowne Plaza Jinan, capital of Shandong province, Scott Williams has moved to Beijing as General Manager of the Crowne Plaza Beijing, Wangfujing, in late October.

His achievements in Jinan have included Travel & Leisure Top 100 China Hotels 2007, Shandong Top 10 Tourism Hotel 2007 and Forbes Top 50 Business Hotels in China 2008.

"The right people around you and effective cooperation are the keys to success," he says. "As the leading hotel in Jinan, Crowne Plaza needed to find new ideas and look at better ways to improve the service. We encouraged all our staff members to be involved - to open their minds and be creative to make the hotel more successful year on year."

A key focus is staff development. "If our staff are willing to learn, we give them every opportunity to be involved," he says, which is what he did at Crowne Plaza Jinan.

The Crowne Plaza Beijing, founded in 1991, on Wangfujing Street, is China's first Crowne Plaza hotel with nearly 20 years of history. It is "a well known hotel in the heart of Beijing's tourist attractions", he says proudly.

He mentions that he will try to provide his team with plenty of opportunities to develop within Crowne Plaza Beijing and within the IHG portfolio of hotels in China.

"The more the employees learn about each other's jobs, the more they understand how the hotel operates, and cross-training and multi-tasking are the keys to success in the hotel industry in China," he says.

The Crowne Plaza brand is one of the seven hotel brands managed by the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). It has been growing rapidly in China in recent years, with 125 hotels on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan .

By the end of this September, IHG had a total of 4,390 hotels with 641,086 rooms worldwide, reportedly making it the largest hotel company by room numbers. It includes 70 Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts with 22,892 rooms in the Asia-Pacific region.

Scott Williams says, "The Crowne Plaza service culture has been the key to Crowne Plaza Beijing's success in 2009."

With business travel picking up, room occupancy is catching up to last year's levels. He says he is "extremely confident" about the Beijing hotel market and expects 2010 to be a strong year.

"Crowne Plaza Beijing accommodates international guests from around the world, including customers from Europe, America and Japan. However, competition is fierce in the Wangfujing area, therefore, we are focusing on emerging markets, such as the Middle East and Russia."

One of the key selling points of Crowne Plaza Beijing is the location given its proximity to most of Beijing's top tourist sites - Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Beihai and Houhai parks, and Temple of Heaven - besides the popular Wangfujing Shopping Mall and the new Qianmen Shopping Street.

"The hotel has been managed very well, so once I settle in, I can see what needs to be addressed and start making changes to improve the hotel for the future," he says.

He has been exploring the city on foot over the past few weeks to familiarize himself with the area, walking from Wangfujing to Zhongguancun area, and to the Bird's Nest. He also walks to Qianmen Street, the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, Xidan and around Sanlitun.

He says he is excited about his life in Beijing and looks forward to discovering it with his wife Christie and 5-month-old baby boy, Blake.

Xie Chuanjiao

(China Daily 11/21/2009 page8)