I don't know when we're going to have a chance to talk about this, so thought it might be good to start the conversation online. I thought the presentations was wonderful and that Alpha an Wonder did a fantastic job.
The layout of RWS was interesting since it really isn't necessary to go into the casino unless you absolutely want to. The shops mostly seemed empty. And, I sort of liked the concept of having multiple hotels. It didn't seem as overwhelming as the feeling I've gotten when being at the Venetian in Macao (master class 08!!) or in Las Vegas. But, all sorts of operational issues.
And I have to admit that I was shocked when I found that they're absolutely not doing any revenue management!! There are so many opportunities!
What did the rest of you think?
I didn't like the concept of having multiple style hotels all in the same resort. Particularly, I thought the Hard Rock Hotel was the most confused of all. Even though RSW is supposed to be a family resort, they should consider keeping this hotel an adults only property. IMHO, the chic contemporary style is less geared towards families and more geared towards adults. However, that message doesn't stick when kids wearing squeeky shoes are eating fries at the bar. I think HR Hotel runs the risk of ending up in no man's land . . . appealing to neither young adults OR families.
ReplyDeleteThey have an interesting concept but it is difficult to control the results because they are not really choosing the guests. During our tour just now, Hard Rock seemed as family oriented as Festive with all the kids running around and the fun pool they have (with that kid's slide).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder how much cross-training they actually do since they are fond of transferring the employees from one place to another depending on the need. From what I understood, F&B department in Resorts World have been having shocking turnovers.
& yes, RM!!!! I've asked HR before about RM positions. They have no idea what that is... & a guy from the finance department of the casino mentioned that there is no need for a Gaming Optimization Manager for now. (??????????!!!!!!)
Yes, their segmentation seems sort of weird. Actually, I don't think they really have any. I still think that having separate hotels is a good idea, but it calls for very careful market segmentation. Take a look at what they do at Walt Disney World Resorts--all different sorts of hotels, but somehow they get it to work. But, then of course, they don't have a Hard Rock!!
ReplyDeleteOh, and yes, oh my about RM!!! My brain was just popping as I saw all of the opportunities there! I don't understand why they're not doing this!!!
I think they don't understand or don't know what RM is all about... but it is weird because they have other properties and I'm sure they have RM in there.. I would like to know why too.
ReplyDeleteHa... if only HR was present today ;p
"Welcome to hardrock...errr I mean Hotel Michael"
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that sharing of the frontline staffs in different product category and guest segment is a questionable decision....Besides the service aspect of things, Im quite doubtful about overall ownership of guest requests...
As for the manpower, I think they are running on a rather lean staff ratio. 1k+ rooms with 500+ rooms staff sounds like a disaster during super peak period...
Check in concept was rather confusing for me too. Festive hotel with lesser room inventory had way much bigger reception and lobby space. Better sense of space in general. Hotel Micheal has more rooms yet a tiny lobby+reception in comparision.
Ethan's comment about sharing staff is an interesting one. Can you even imagine the consistency challenges that poses?
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure that they use RM in their other properties. From what I've heard, they almost purchased the Rainmaker system for Genting, but then backed out last year when the economy went bad.
On sharing staff and cross-training, I asked our guide whether they cross-train the F&B staff whom they rotate across the different restos... and they said that they didn't!
ReplyDeleteThe two reasons she gave me were 1) the staff can easily adjust and are expected to learn on the job when they get to the restaurant and 2) they only serve supporting roles when they do work in other restos (i.e. as bussers and runners and not servers).
I imagine that would definitely impact consistency of service. I won't be surprised to go to one outlet, ask a waiter about a dish and not get an immediate answer. Even if he does find out for me, imagine how that would make the guest feel, knowing the serving staff didn't even know what they were serving.
Also, I imagine those trained to be servers won't be so happy being relegated to being runners or bussers and working in a completely new environment with a different layout and a different team!
I was disappointed to find that they operate on such an ad-hoc manner and appear to see things simplistically. It appeared to me that they don't care or are not aware of the need to create a seamless service experience for their guests. I personally won't be too happy working there as a warm body they can just deploy to whichever restaurant needs help.
I'm wondering if they will let any of our groups use them for our HR project? They would be an interesting case study.
It would be a great HR project. You should write our guides and ask them!! You could pick one particular area (say either restaurants or front desk) and focus in. But, to be fair to them, they have only been open for a couple of months. Things will hopefully be much better in a bit. Most operations are pretty rough at the beginning. I wonder how they run things at their other operations?
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised to see how unorganized they are, both in HR and Revenue Management, given that they have the same owner as Resort World Genting which has been established for a long time.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of training, when Wonder said that the F&B staff had to rotate in all of their outlets, my first thought was "How can they memorize all of the menu items from all restaurants?" Moreover, as different restaurants have different concepts, the standard procedures of how they greet and serve the customers will be different as well. This definitely needs a lot of cross-training. However, as Suzy mentioned, they don't have a cross-training program as they thought the staff could easily adjust themselves. Let's see how their performance is and what customer feedbacks we hear in the next few months!
On the ending note, I was rather disappointed that we couldn't see any of their guestrooms, as the areas they showed us are the ones that we can go on our own any time.
Yes, I'd like to see their rooms too (but I'm glad they were busy!!!). But, having the presentation and getting to ask them questions was invaluable.
ReplyDeleteI was pretty impressed by the amount of resources put into the integration of IT at the Resort World Sentosa ....one area where they have probably got it right,probably with the exception of revenue management systems.
ReplyDeleteHowever one could imagine,how much of a herculean task it must have been to integrate so many facilities together,i.e.the hotels,the casino,the retail,the restaurants,the theme park,the mice facilities and all other subsidiary users of IT.
Was really impressed by the talk done by the Senior VP of IT - Mr.Yap the other day for one of our classes.
We could imagine the relevance of the integration of IT for the whole concept to get it geared to achieve guest satisfaction and they seem to have got it to a large extent though there may be pockets for futher improvement