Room service
The Peninsula marque was launched by two brothers from Baghdad, Ellis and Elly Kadoorie, who arrived in Hong Kong via Shanghai. It remains a majority family-owned business; Sir Michael Kadoorie, the current chairman, is the third generation of family caretakers and one of his daughters recently joined the business.
“That history and family ownership really does differentiate us from everyone else, and is really at the core of the brand’s DNA and ethos,” says The Peninsula Hotels vice-president of marketing Rob Cheng. “It allows us to have a very long-term view and drives everything we do.
“First of all it dictates where we actually will have our hotels. We have a really strong philosophy of being in the most dynamic gateway cities. We’re very careful and very, very patient in making sure that we have the right location and that it’s in the heart of the city. It has to be an iconic address, and the buildings and the sites themselves have to be significant enough to house a Peninsula.”
Expansion has, therefore, been unhurried, to say the least. The second Peninsula hotel opened in Manila in 1976, more than 50 years after the first. The next followed comparatively quickly, with a move into the US market with The Peninsula New York – in Fifth Avenue – in 1988. Beijing came a year later, and properties have since been launched in Beverly Hills, Bangkok, Chicago, Tokyo and in Shanghai, on the historic Bund. What the group has lacked, though, has been a European presence.
That changed in August 2014, when The Peninsula Paris, in Avenue Kléber, a stone’s throw from the Arc de Triomphe, opened its doors after four years of painstaking renovation and modernisation. “We had been looking in the city for about 20 years,” says Cheng. “It’s a beautiful heritage building that was a grand hotel when it was first built at the turn of the century, and we spent a lot of time making sure that this hotel would still be relevant and up to scratch in 50 years or 100 years. So we invested a significant amount of time, energy and resources into modernising this building while keeping the historical façade. We did historic research to make sure that we’re true to the building’s heritage and true to the craftsmanship that had gone into the original. The décor is very French; we used local designers, local architects,” Cheng says.
Each property has to deliver on the Peninsula promise and provide consistently high standards of luxury and service, but each does that in a slightly different way, which reflects the city it’s in and the different clientele of each hotel. “In Paris, we definitely err on the side of giving them a Paris experience, because a Peninsula experience is by definition bespoke. Obviously it’s very high touch, and catering to the clients’ needs, but each hotel needs to be unique and reflective of the destination.”
Stepping back, leaning forward
Research, Cheng explains, tends to be either very big picture, or focused on samples of one. For the elite sort of clientele that Peninsula properties attract, to put a ‘How was your stay?’ feedback card and pencil beside the bed would be a no-no.
“The formal research is limited to brand trackers,” he says. “Though we do work with some of our partners like American Express to get a little bit more in-depth information about its members and what their habits are, and find out about its brand perceptions and purchasing behaviour through its business insights team.” Understanding guests’ broader needs and desires – not just what they expect from a hotel visit – is essential, he says, to understanding how to anticipate their expectations and surprising them.
“We, at a central level, do a lot of research across the market – I, in the marketing function, talk to a lot of luxury brands and pay attention not only to the world of hospitality but the world of luxury in general, looking at fashion, retail and other fields where our clients are also consuming. We have a technology team paying attention to what’s next in technology. From a high-level brand perspective we do partner with some publishing houses and some in-market research where we test brand awareness, but in terms of the needs of clients, we’re doing it the old fashioned way – paying attention to the market and talking to our customers. We haven’t embarked on big quant studies just because, at this level, it’s very hard to find the right methodology to get it. We also try to be ahead of the curve, and sometimes you can’t do that with research.”
“Obviously, we don’t want to send you a three-page survey after every stay so it really is based on relationships and conversations with our guests.”
Observation and conversation – between staff and individual guests – are the main research tool when it comes to driving incremental innovation, that is, making the little adjustments and improvements to individual hotels’ offering that enhance the client experience. “Obviously, we don’t want to send you a three-page survey after every stay so it really is based on relationships and conversations with our guests,” says Cheng.
The kinds of changes that observation has brought about include different language settings on bedside tablet computers that control every aspect of a guest room, from the curtains and temperature to the television and hotel information. “Some of our guests, who perhaps don’t speak English or the local language – wouldn’t it be nice if someone from Korea could operate the TV easily in their home language? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could put the room service menu in Russian? Those are innovations that would have been impossible to do if you had put it in a survey, it’s through the power of observation and conversation.”
Another change came when staff noticed a female guest blowing on her nails after a manicure. “So in Shanghai and Paris and Hong Kong, we actually have a nail dryer built into the room so our guests don’t have to blow on their nails in the lift. It’s something that she would never have come up with if we’d asked her, but it means we’re able to surprise and delight and inspire our guests.”
Throughout the group’s development, the country of origin of guests has changed, leading to tweaks in the services provided, particularly as the number of travellers from China, Southeast Asia, South America and Russia increases. “At the highest end, we tend to see more similarities than differences across the different markets,” says Cheng. “Of course, things like language and cuisine are things we’re sensitive to. With the advent of the Chinese traveller, being an Asian brand, we do have Chinese breakfasts; and I can attest to that being one thing I do miss sometimes – a little taste from home for breakfast. And, yes, the American or British traveller might be more interested in seeing the cultural side (of a city) and the Chinese traveller might be more interested in shopping, but that is easily taken care of at the hotel level. At the broader level, the top end doesn’t have very dissimilar needs.”
Special delivery
Personalisation of service is the role of staff at individual Peninsula properties, based on an approach to service that comes from management. “That ethos and long-term vision really differentiates us in terms of the physical hotels that we have and I think then looking at the family ownership really drives the service element of the hotel,” Cheng says. “Sir Michael (Kadoorie), who is third generation and chairman of the company, really looks at every member of the Peninsula team as a member of his family. That’s not your typical PR talk; it really does translate into real care and I think emanating from the very top really makes every member of staff feel like they’re part of something special and in turn, they’re then able to give themselves fully into delivering an experience for our guests.”
Individual guests’ preferences are also noted, “but not in a very creepy way”, says Cheng. “We’re trying to do it in the more traditional way, so it’s not necessarily about information in a database, but – and that’s the benefit of being a small group – we talk to each other. So if we know we have a guest of Beverly Hills coming to Shanghai, the general manager of Shanghai will call the general manager of Beverly Hills and say, “We have Ms So-and-so, how can we make her stay more special?” And we have shipped candy bars and water or flowers from far-flung places to make sure that our guests feel at home. We do rely on technology, but what really makes a difference is that phone call.”
Bookings still come largely from traditional sources – travel agents, booking agencies and individuals – and, increasingly digitally. “Obviously we pay attention to TripAdvisor and social media, and I have monitoring services on all of them, and we have a head office team as well as each property dedicated to online feedback. We take it very seriously, so most reviews have a response. We treat it like a guest letter, so the general manager will write back.”
The company’s own understanding of what it represents, both to existing clients and potential future guests, means it doesn’t use traditional market research for its communications campaigns, nor even an external advertising agency. “Our communications are very focused on three points: our staff, our hotels and our cities. That’s what defines Peninsula,” says Cheng. “We don’t research different creative. But we certainly get and appreciate feedback from our guests so we do take that into account. Online obviously allows us to test the effectiveness of creative and copy, and we do that, but as for focus groups asking ‘do you like creative A or creative B, we don’t do that.”
Next steps
From such a slow start to expansion, the group is now growing at a comparative sprint. London is next in the roll-out plan, and an agreement with Grosvenor has been signed to acquire a site in the city centre on Hyde Park Corner. “The building itself is not interesting right now because it’s an office block built in the 1960s, but the site itself – you can’t get more Central London than that – and it’s a very large site, 1.5 acres, with views over Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park, so that will be an incredible project,” Cheng says.
After that will come a new Peninsula in Asia; the company has bought the former headquarters of the Burma Railroad Company, in Yangon, Myanmar. “We believe in the growth and potential of Myanmar as a country, and this beautiful colonial building is right in the heart of this city that, in the past really was the gateway to India and Southeast Asia. We’re proud to be part of the growth story of Myanmar.”
The group faces strong competition from other luxury hotel groups in many of its destination cities; Hong Kong, London, Paris and New York are hardly short of high-end accommodation. But Cheng says while it does keep an eye on competing hotels – and invests millions in upgrades and renovations to existing properties as well as putting more dots on the map – there is plenty of demand.
“Right now in Paris there are three other historic hotels going through renovation and for us it’s great. It takes the city to a new level, and we think cities like Paris and London can definitely take another luxury hotel.”
This article originally appeared in Impact magazine, Issue 8 January 2015.

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