Pan Pacific Hotels Group named Team of the Year at SBR Management Excellence Awards

This year, the sales and marketing team was recognised twice for its best-in-class influencer marketing.

Pan Pacific Hotels Group owns and manages nearly 50 hotels, resorts and serviced suites, including those under development in 29 cities across Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

In January, PPHG unveiled its latest brand, PARKROYAL COLLECTION, with a focus on iconic design, eco-friendliness and sustainability. The Group also rebranded the former Marina Mandarin into PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay, with the hotel set to undergo a $45 million transformation to become a garden-in-a-hotel.

Spearheading the launch and rebrand was none other than the company’s sales and marketing team who has been actively promoting “sustainable hospitality” by implementing a single-use plastics campaign in all of the Group’s hotels. The team was also instrumental in redesigning the mobile-optimised brand website, panpacific.com, which cut the booking process to three steps and resulted in a 19% lift in bookings.
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In an email interview, Singapore Business Review talked to Cinn Tan, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at PPHG, to discuss the Group’s latest brand refresh, their upcoming initiatives and marketing campaigns, as well as the launch of a WeChat Mini Program for its global portfolio.

What does it mean to you to win the Team of the Year for Hospitality and Leisure?
We are excited about being recognised and rewarded as a team. It’s the people who make the success of the company. In a true display of teamwork and camaraderie, we built the foundations of Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) and its brands during our brand refresh last year. We continue to build upon it, with the launch of a new brand with PARKROYAL COLLECTION, sales initiatives and new hotel launches over the past months, and more exciting things are unfolding. I am proud of all my team members, who have been tireless in reaching for our goals, but not without a sense of fun amongst us!

Can you tell us more about the company’s new identity under the brand refresh?
The brand refresh is built on the concept of “trust”—the attribute most frequently cited by our guests and partners about us. We emphasised this concept in our company values, anchored in trust.

We extend this value to our philosophy of “Sincerely Yours”—earning respect and trust in all that we do from our hearts, to our service culture as well as brand promises and experiences. This underlines all our brands, as this service culture and core values set us apart not only for our guests but also our associates, owners and partners.

With this, our individual brands are then differentiated based on our target audience and brand legacies. Pan Pacific, as the mothership brand, upholds “Sincerely Yours,” emphasising graciousness, dependability and resourcefulness.

The PARKROYAL brand, with roots in Australia, exuberates the comfortable, approachable attitude which celebrates real connections with people and the locations. Its brand promise says it all with “Simply Yours.”

In January this year, we launched our latest brand, PARKROYAL COLLECTION. This brand focuses on iconic design, eco-friendliness and sustainability with an emphasis on lifestyle
and well-being. This is a natural evolvement as PPHG has been a leader in sustainable hospitality, having driven a no single-use plastics campaign and other innovative initiatives in all our hotels. The flagship PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering (renamed from PARKROYAL on Pickering), with an iconic architecture and vertical gardens, has been named “World’s Leading Green City Hotel” for two consecutive years because of several initiatives, including zero-energy sky gardens and rain-water harvesting technology. We have also rebranded the former Marina Mandarin into PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay. The hotel will undergo a $45 million transformation into a garden-in-a-hotel.

What are the highlights of the Sales & Marketing team’s initiatives?
To position PPHG for the future, the sales and marketing team spearheaded an extensive brand refresh for the company. Through an integrated marketing strategy, the team set out to create a stronger and clearer positioning for their brands. These efforts won the industry and customers’ vote of confidence, which resulted in PPHG being named the “Best Regional Hotel Chain” for two consecutive years by leading industry publications.

In response to changing customer behaviours and preferences, the team revamped what was previously three separate websites into a single brand website, panpacific.com. This website was re-designed with an understanding of how customer needs and booking habits have evolved, and mapped against the entire customer journey.

Today, it is a mobile-optimised website across various platforms and devices. Bookings on the new website can be completed in three easy steps, which has resulted in a 19% uplift in bookings.

Through strategic PR events and activities which increased the brand exposure in key markets across Southeast Asia, China, and Australia. More than 80% of media coverage were in top titles. Travel titles were also part of the integrated media campaign. Through these publications, PPHG achieved a greater share of voice amongst their targeted and desired readership.

PPHG also acknowledged China’s importance as its second largest and fastest growing market. Placing the country on the core of its digital marketing push, PPHG became the pioneer in launching a WeChat Mini Program for its global portfolio, thereby directly reaching millions of Chinese consumers via the super app. The Mini Program provides users with city guides and essential travel information such as attractions and dining and shopping options around PPHG destinations.

PPHG has made community engagement the centre of their marketing goal. To date, the brands’ Instagram and Facebook pages have reached more than 14 million users and engaged some 1.5 million users at an industry-leading rate of 9.5%. This year, the team was awarded not just one, but two accolades for its best-in-class influencer marketing. 

Where does the team find inspiration in coming up with new projects?
Inspiration comes when our team feels encouraged to share their ideas and build on one another’s ideas. We operate on an open communications culture where we encourage interaction among our team members, as well as those from other functions. There are both organised meetings including staff retreats and organic gatherings. Well, we know that sometimes the best ideas are discussed over lunch or a cup of coffee!

We also encourage team members to gain exposure and interact with industry peers and beyond by attending and speaking at conferences, readings and research.

What’s the key to building a winning team, and what are your future plans?
Building a winning team requires trust. I believe in walking the talk and inspiring others through action, and caring for each of my team members. Every team member is precious and brings a host of qualities that makes them unique. My task is to amplify these strengths and harness our collective power as a team to do bigger things.

By the same token, I believe in creating brands that people can trust. With brands, it is more about offering an intimate experience which is tough to replicate. My team and I will have many fantastic opportunities to do that this year, as 2020 is going to be a year of many firsts. Just listing a few— Pan Pacific London, our luxury flagship in the UK will open in October, whilst the first PARKROYAL hotel in China will open in December. We’re also setting foot in Bangkok and returning to Jakarta with a big bang this year!

This year, we continue to invest in building brand love. We are launching our very own mobile app and enhancing our DISCOVERY guest loyalty programme with even more local experiences that make travel insightful and meaningful this year.