SPOTLIGHT ON SOUTH AND PACIFIC ASIA


The region is also of interest for Lapauw, which puts big hopes on the development especially in the Asia Pacific area. As David Kidney, regional manager Lapauw Asia Pacific explains, currently “the company sees the majority of business being specific to flatwork ironing across our range of ironers”.


In terms of market prospects, according to Kidney, the region shows robust inquiries “however there is still a certain degree of hesitation as a result of still being cautious of pandemic times, the state of world affairs – in some cases domestic – and financial woes resulting from corruption”.


“Challenges for the overall industry are labour, cost of operation and being able to decide to grow or be content with operating levels specific to volume.” He adds that the company sees the biggest potential in the Philippines and Vietnam these days. The Asian region also attracts interest from Girbau, which traditionally puts its biggest expectations on countries of the Asia Pacific region.


Yau Kim Yan, president of Girbau Malaysia, comments: “For the first half of the year, Philippines is seeing the highest growth in the region. With many hotels upcoming and lacking of commercial laundry to serve the booming hotel


LIVING STANDARDS: People in the region are agenrally seing a lift in linving standards Editorial credit: 2p2play / Shutterstock.com


industry. Many of the hotels are looking into having their in-house laundry (OPL) or to build a centralised laundry facilities to serve their cluster of hotels. Tourists’ arrival to Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam and especially Thailand has boosted the laundry market possibly back to pre- pandemic level. With high occupancy consistency in major hotels, customers can invest into providing a better service to their patrons by providing a cleaner and more sustainable environment to the patrons».


STEADY MARKET: Renzacci continues to export to the region and does not outsource servicing


12 LCNi | September 2024


Kim Yan believes that the demand for laundry will be growing in the coming years. “As for drycleaning, it is somewhat more alarming due to environment issues. There is the option of using weycleaning to replace the drycleaning process. The major challenge in the industry is the laundry knowledge of the buyer. Many of the buyers are still very focused on the pricing instead of the long-term benefits such as savings on utilities and operational efficiency and creating a positive impact to Mother Earth. “There are connections on the performance from the washer to dryer to ironing line which customers require to understand before making a buying decision. Example: A consistent high spin washer can lead to a shorter time in the dryer and ironing line which will then reduce the overall cost of the laundry. The buyer are savings on gas, electric, steam, operation time and labour cost which is commonly the highest cost in an operation. Regional countries with high potential of attracting tourism such as Thailand,


Philippines and Vietnam are the few promising growth, in my opinion.” Finally, YS Wang, managing director, Jensen Asia remains slightly more pessimistic. Wang comments: “In general, commercial laundries in South East Asia are slowly recovering from the Covid pandemic. Most laundries are back at 60- 70% of pre-Covid capacity. Some laundries are even experiencing higher capacity than before the pandemic. This could also be due to the sudden surge in tourist in some of the countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam. However, the rising cost of labour, materials and energy price affected their profit margin. Most laundry owners are raising their prices in order to keep up with the current market price.”


Wang expects demand for laundry and drycleaning services will continue to grow in the Asia Pacific region, while the major challenges would be the shortage of labour and the local regulation to push for renewable and clean energy, forcing some of the small to medium size laundries to shut down their business.


‘For our company, we are constantly working on new innovative products to minimise the challenges faced by our customers. However, the inability to obtain higher bank financing or loans may force some of the owners to look for cheaper products instead of investing in higher quality and standard products. We believe that the Arabic Peninsula region is the most promising for growth in B2B and B2C laundry business.”


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