In-conversation: Iwan Kurniawan, Group Director, Discovery Hotel & Resorts
“For small chains like us, it’s hard to use a loyalty program to drive direct bookings...”
Iwan Kurniawan, is a veteran in the hospitality industry with over two decades of experience. His career has taken him from F&B to General Manager, and now Group Director of Sales & Marketing at Discovery Hotel & Resorts.
He shares his candid take on the unique nuances of operating a small hospitality chain in Indonesia in this conversation with us. Implicit in his current focus is the opportunity that Covid-19 has presented to invest in technology to level the playing field, and drive direct bookings.
Hotels as a home away from home.
“I never planned to work in hospitality. I started in F&B. It was the F&B division within a hotel. From there, I realized that I liked working in a hotel because it feels like your home. You have everything you need in it. I just enjoyed the working environment.”
Most challenging moments in hospitality.
“During Covid-19, there was of course pressure facing off against owners to deliver profits. It was also challenging to manage staff morale. As a leader, we had to make sure our staff could be paid. That they could go home with the family happy.
In Jakarta, over the years, there’s been a lot of new hotels opening which placed pressure on pricing. In 2014, we came together as an industry to form Revenue E-Commerce Jakarta to facilitate an industry-level discussion on healthy selling processes. We needed to create a stable pricing environment. The message really was: don’t jeopardise your brand and product by engaging in predatory pricing.”
Seizing Discovery Hotel and Resorts’ time to grow.
“Discovery Hotel and Resorts has been around since 1999. We manage Hotel Borobudur which is 90,000 square metres, the biggest hotel in Jakarta. It has the biggest and deepest pool. The national synchronised swimmers practise in it.
There’s a big opportunity for our brand. It’s well-known among the older generation. The younger generation knows us too because their parents took them to our properties when they were kids. We are working on a new brand that will allow us to capture this opportunity. It’s going to have a more informal and relaxed vibe. It’s our time to grow.”
Getting guests to book direct as a small chain.
“Since the beginning, hoteliers have always talked about driving direct bookings, but it remains a challenge. Guests want to see options when they are making bookings - like a supermarket.
The big hotel brands with many properties are able to achieve that. We are a small chain with 4 properties. For small chains like us, it’s hard to use a loyalty program to drive direct bookings. We should offer higher value rewards versus the big brands.
Covid-19 has allowed hoteliers to convince owners that they need to invest in the direct channel. Historically, OTAs have had the tools to use customer data well, and we need to be able to do the same. To get guests to book directly, we need to give them something unique that they do not get when they book via OTAs. Of course, we also need to make sure that we match the price guests may find on OTAs. That is the number one thing guests look for.”
Delivering against guest expectations.
“You need both employee engagement and great operations to deliver guest experiences. The two are equally important and work hand-in-hand.
Price drives guest expectations. If a guest encounters a certain level of service at another hotel with the same price point, they will expect the same or better here. You need to be aware of the expectations guests may have. At the same time, we need to ensure that our employees are well-trained to be able to meet those guest expectations.”
Digitization is happening across the industry.
“The industry is getting more digitized. Take payments, for example, now most hotels even support QRIS (Indonesia’s QR payment standard) payments for bookings.
E-concierge - guest apps that facilitate self-serve in-room amenity ordering - is also getting adopted by more hotels. These have been around since 2018 and hoteliers were originally not keen on it. After Covid-19 though, hoteliers are coming around to the idea that they may need these types of tools.”
In-house technology as a competitive advantage.
“Most local chains use third-party software for online reputation management and channel management. We recently developed a business intelligence dashboard for historical data and reporting.
At this point, we’re investing in an in-house dashboard for revenue and trend projections that we can use to inform our marketing strategy. We’re also developing a new engine as our backbone for data and analytical tools. Today, we use a third-party solution, so we aren’t able to fully maximize the use of the data. By moving that to an in-house build, we’ll also be able to collaborate more with the ecosystem. We can be more flexible around third-party integrations, and we’re saving for each one.”
