Face-to-Face: Chris Bailey
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This week, Travel Daily Asia chats with Chris Bailey, chief operating officer of Centara Hotels & Resorts…
Q) How do you feel the Thai hotel sector is performing at present? Are there any key emerging markets you have noticed and where are Centara’s main areas of focus?
The performance of the Thai hotel sector is currently mixed to be frank. We enjoy significant growth in the China market but the sector struggles with late demands. The growth of the China market, which some say could be as much as 50% of arrivals by 2019, has to be carefully considered. We do not want to put all of our eggs in one basket!
Of concern is the more mature international markets and I would like to see a study conducted as to who has overall outbound growth, albeit not to Thailand and perhaps where extra effort by the tourism industry can create greater positive growth.
Q) How are Centara’s Thai hotels picking up from the disruption of 2014, and were you significantly impacted by the Bangkok bomb?
Pick up has been excellent in Q1-Q3 as our result in the stock market demonstrate. Of course the August bomb had an impact, however the impact was extremely short lived – less than two weeks. In general, many comment that October has been unusually slow so now I wonder if this isn’t a delayed reaction to the bomb based on booking patterns.
Q) Earlier this year Centara signed its first hotel in China. Is this key area of focus for your international development team?
China is a destination we are focusing on for business growth. We would like to see a footprint in the country as it also certainly helps in our brand awareness for the fast growing outbound market.
Q) And which other international markets are you looking at?
Our five-year plan sees a concentration within the AEC region, complimented by more Indian Ocean and Middle East growth. Outside these areas we target the Caribbean market as we feel our major Europeans client base would really accept our product and service. Cuba is the first destination to come online.
Q) What are your key source markets, in terms of nationality, and are you noticing any major shifts?
Traditionally our markets have always been UK, Australia, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia together with Thai. In recent years we have worked hard at creating a broader source market base open by opening several sale offices in markets like France, UAE, South Africa, North America etc, and these are now paying dividends. Of course, like many, China has become a strong source market, within our top five.
Q) And what further developments can we expect from Centara in the remainder of 2015 and 2016?
We have some exciting developments in store including a refresh of our brands, new IT technology roll-out to our trade business partners, upgraded entertainment and animation program at select resort and of course eight future properties.
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