Hotel rooms can be similar worldwide but Novotel Citygate creates a difference with its staff and innovation. Guo Jiaxue reports.

On his first day as general manager at Hotel Novotel Citygate in Tung Chung, Nicholas Cullum took a walk around the property's front and back areas.

Unlike other hotels in the high-density downtown, Novotel enjoys peaceful, unobstructed sea views. The huge revolving door at the entrance is a reminder for all the people walking through that it is a rarity-a spacious place in Hong Kong.

Cullum was assigned to manage the hotel as of June 18. The philosophy of Accor, the French hotel group that owns hotel chains such as Novotel, is to rotate its general managers at its different hotels every two or three years to ensure there is always a fresh perspective.

During his nice, meandering walk around the hotel, its new boss was surprised at the number of staff he encountered whom he knew from his previous hotel postings and who had transferred over the years. "Which was very comforting," he says.

Although it was his first day, things had a familiarity to them. In fact, six years previously, he had been at the grand opening of the hotel. It was a week after he had joined the Accor Group. "So I knew this hotel from the very beginning, from the day it was born. (And) I kept a close eye on it," he says.

A native of Australia, Cullum has been in Hong Kong for 25 years and has worked as a hotelier for more than 18 years. The veteran hotel manager has witnessed the many ups and downs of Hong Kong hotels, and foresees challenges in the near future.

For the past few years, the increase of hotel rooms has lagged way behind the growing number of tourists in Hong Kong. This has caused serious room shortages and has pushed hotel occupancy in Hong Kong ever higher. The average occupancy rate across the territory was 89 percent in 2011, a 2 percent increase on 2010.

But the government has accelerated approvals. In the next four years, the city will gain 49 new hotels, or 9,000 more rooms. As new players flood in, the market will change.

"The coming few years will be challenging for all Hong Kong hotels. The ever expanding growth of new hotels and continued development in this area has put pressure on existing properties to maintain market share," Cullum says, "If tourist numbers don't grow much, or remain the same, hotel occupancy will be under pressure."

But for Novotel Citygate, the situation is not entirely the same however.

Located at the Tung Chung MTR station, the hotel primarily serves the airport market. Many of its guests are usually transiting or working with airport-related industries or companies, who require accommodation close to the airport.

"I believe we are lucky in that way. We do have a very specialized niche market of guests using us as a stopover. So I have confidence we will continue to be successful because of our location," Cullum says.

Targeting this particular market are just three hotels close to the airport, but a new hotel in Discovery Bay, scheduled to open at the end of this year, may pose a challenge.

"Discovery Bay is a challenging location. I believe it will probably have a strong leisure market because it's near Disneyland."

Novotel Citygate is not just an airport hotel, but also a popular choice among family travelers who come here for leisure. "That is, Disney," Cullum says.

The hotel's close proximity to Disneyland is another selling point. The Tung Chung station, where the hotel is located, is just one stop from Sunny Bay station, with its distinctive MTR train with Mickey Mouse windows, couch seating, and Disneyland cartoon figurines displayed in carriages, taking passengers directly to the Disneyland resort.

In addition, the city's biggest outlet shopping mall is situated right next to the hotel, and the Ngong Ping 360 cable car is just a five-minute walk away. Central is half an hour by MTR.

Cullum is optimistic about Novotel Citygate's future, given the expanding housing developments in Tung Chung, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, and the expansion of the Hong Kong International Airport, which will include a third runway in the coming years.

"These will ensure continued demand for our hotel and its products," he says, "As the saying goes, location, location, location."

In fact, the hotel's location has received positive feedback from travelers on the TripAdvisor website. Websites like TripAdvisor are reforming the way hotels do business.

"Over the last few years, guests have become a lot more savvy, more educated. If they go on holiday, they would (previously) check the brochure, but now they go online, check on social media websites to find out what other travelers think, get real feedback from travelers, the pictures that travelers took (rather than) the brochure."

"This means we must be much more mindful about problems that can be highlighted immediately to the world. We have to be very careful," Cullum says.

The needs of customers are also rapidly changing. "Customers have different needs every year. Things become fashionable or unfashionable. We have to be able to change in different areas if we have to."

The ability to change is a concept that Cullum insists upon. "The secret to survival and prospering is to be dynamic and malleable. Guests will have more and more choice in the coming years. It's our job as hoteliers to ensure that our products meet ever-changing consumer demands."

Cullum believes a hotel's success is due to its staff. "My aim is to ensure that the team is provided with the tools and knowledge and understanding of what is expected of them to succeed. Staff should be encouraged and feel empowered to make decisions to ensure our guests' satisfaction," he tells China Daily about his management philosophy.

"It might sound like a cliche but it's true. People make the difference," he says, "Customers can go and stay in any hotel anywhere in the world, and rooms can be very similar. As a hotel manager, what you can do to make a difference is to make the people different."

The Accor hotel group seeks to get customer feedback through online questionnaires; the task of each hotel is to gather as much feedback as possible in order to always understand their guests needs and fix areas of concern that might be highlighted.

Cullum says. "This hotel invests a lot of time, money and energy to ensure its staff is friendly and attentive to customers. It's my role to continue this."

(HK Edition 08/24/2012 page8)