CRISIS CONTROL I
’ve had my fair share of crises. I was close to the Al-Qaeda bomb-
ing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya in 1998. And in 2003 and 2008, I dealt with the aſt ermath of bombs that hit the Taj hotel [as vice-president of spa operations and devel- opment] in Mumbai, India. T e one thing that comes up time and again is the importance of looking aſt er people and your staff . T is is one of our core values at Six Senses
SAMIR PATEL Managing director, Six Senses Spas
Although we didn’t evacuate in the end, I
Spas and something I’ve tried to stay true to during the Arab Spring in which six of my spas – one each in Egypt, Syria, Jor- dan, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait – have been impacted. When things erupted in Egypt, for example, my fi rst priority was to make sure the staff had an escape route. We monitored the fl ashes of violence across the country to work out which would be the safest and quickest way to get them out. T en on the other side, we also arranged
for emergency visas so they could enter Doha and arranged apartments.
had also sorted out work permits for the ther- apists. I can’t ever aff ord to take my eye off the bottom line and balancing staff is part of this. We have a spa in a Greek resort that [due to the fi nancial crisis] laid off all of its hotel employees at the end of 2011, but as our contracts are so stringent they’ve had to keep on our spa director and therapist trainer. As the spa isn’t operating, I’ve got them working on other new openings and projects to keep them engaged. T is is a win-win for us and it also demonstrates our loyalty to employees. The key is to keep your staff energised.
I start by laying down the facts without emotion so people don’t panic. Once the sit- uation has been accepted, I’ll then focus on the human aspect and how things are going to impact on people’s lives. At this point, it’s
Some of our spas have been badly affected by the political unrest in the Middle East. Yet we’ve reduced costs by relocating therapists and redirecting resources
O
ur Hoshinoya Karuizawa resort has 77 villas and is situated north
very rare that I would make an executive decision on what to do next – I prefer to draw on group wisdom and encourage team members to come up with their own solutions. On a practical
level you’re getting them to contribute ideas, to take up tasks and be responsible. Individually, some of our spas, especially
the one at the InterContinental in Egypt, have been badly affected by the political unrest in the Middle East. Yet we’ve reduced costs by relocating therapists and redirecting resources. And thanks to the exceptional per- formance of spas in other regions, we were above our EBITDA target in 2011. In Egypt, we’re now launching wellbe-
ing retreats to raise the profi le of the hotel. We’re using the spa and wellness off ering as the face of positive PR messaging and that’s our way of dealing with the press. We would never put out a message to reassure custom- ers that we’re doing OK in a time of crisis as that would be counter-productive. As a glo- bal brand it’s expected that we would provide the same high-level of service that we always do as long as the resort remains open.
Six Senses, an Asia-based resort and spa development and management company, currently has 14 resorts and 30 spas across the globe. Details:
www.sixsensesspas.com
of Toyko next to the Hoshino Hot Springs – the source of water we use in our onsen [traditional Japanese hot baths]. We opened in 2005 and in early 2011 were on target to double our number of international guests from 15 per cent in 2010 to 30 per cent. But then the devastating earthquake and
KYOKO TANZAWA PR manager, Hoshinoya fl agship resorts, Japan
of ‘curing waters’ and unlike in the city we didn’t have any electrical problems. Luxury was a taboo following a disaster
tsunami hit Japan in March and changed everything. Fortunately, we weren’t directly hit, but our business was greatly aff ected – almost all reservations from abroad were cancelled and in just one month we lost jpy100m (us$1.2m, €1m, £836,750) and our occupancy, which averages 82 per cent a year, dropped by 50 per cent. Our immediate response was to shiſt our
focus to the national market and as we’re only one hour from Tokyo, people who were exhausted from dealing with the aſt ermath saw our resort as a place to escape to. We are surrounded by nature, have an abundance
SPA BUSINESS 3 2011 ©Cybertrek 2011
of such magnitude, so we were modest with our publicity and promoted the fact that our resort was untouched and safe rather than pushing the pampering aspect. We based this on the offi cial report of Karuizawa – the near- est town – which showed that radiation levels were low risk. We posted these details on our website, emailed them out on our newsletter and our travel agents helped to get this mes- sage across to our international guests. We run another ryokan [a resort with
onsen] near Fukushima and although it wasn’t badly aff ected by radiation, we had to shut it down to provide a shelter for survi- vors. We’ve since set up a Save the Children campaign and for every guest who stays
in our hotel we donate jpy1,000 (us$13, €10, £8) to help the children aff ected by the tsunami. We kept updating people
on the situation in Japan until the end of May. In June,
we started promoting the resort properly once more. We’ve been sending out direct marketing, with an emphasis on social net- work sites, and putting together attractive promotions for the resort. With the help of the Japanese National Tourism Offi ce, we’ve also been hosting as many international media as possible on familiarisation trips. Today, the number of our local guests has
almost recovered, but there’s still some way to go with the international market. We’re hopeful that our marketing eff orts together with word of mouth recommendations will help us to recover this lost business.
Hoshinoya Karuizawa (see sb10/3 p34) is one of three fl agship sites for Hoshino Resorts, which manages 28 properties across Japan. Details:
http://en.hoshinoresort.com
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