Makeover pays off for hotel

Golden Sands Resort in Penang, a member of the Shangri-La Group of Hotels and Resorts, has chalked up a good occupancy rate since its RM50mil renovation exercise was completed in November 2009.

According to its general manager Bruno Cristol, the 387 room resort had recorded a 68% occupancy rate for 2011, an increase of 7% per annum since it underwent the largest makeover in its 32-year history. “This year, we are targeting an occupancy rate of over 70% as we plan to penetrate the growing market in China,” he added. “The projected occupancy rate for this year should also increase because of the three awards we won last year,” Cristol said.

Golden Sands won the Best Family Resort in Asia from the ‘Holiday With Kids’ magazine, a leading family publication in Australia, to strengthen its status in the family market segment in Australia. “We also won another Best Family Resort award in Malaysia from the ‘Expatriate Lifestyle’ magazine, a Kuala Lumpur based publication, which should help raise the awareness of our resort’s expatriates com- munity.

“The most important award is the Best Hotel Services award from the Malaysia Tourism Award 2010/2011,” he said. Cristol said the three awards confirmed the resort’s position as the premier family resort in Asia. “The awards were given based on a stringent criteria set by the judges. “The criteria include overall efficiency, courtesy and hospitality related qualities in the hotel operations such as cleanliness, maintenance and general services,” he said.

Since 2009, the meeting, incentive, convention, and exhibition (MICE) market for Golden Sands has also improved by about 60%. He added that in the last two years, the resort received a lot of bookings from the pharmaceu- tical and petroleum business segments. “And per month, for the past two years, the bookings from the MICE market had been around 1,700 compared 300 to 400 per month before the renovation,” he said.

Cristol said the top five over- seas destinations for Golden Sands Resort came from Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle-East, which generated about 60% of the resort’s business. “The remaining 40% comes from the domestic market,” he said.

-thestar online.

www.shangri-la.com