CEO Interview with Mr Ho Kwon Ping, Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited
CEO Interview with Mr Ho Kwon Ping, Executive Chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited
How has Banyan Tree been using the internet to increase awareness, branding and selling online and how do you see the web as a strategic point for companies moving forward in the years ahead?
Online marketing will form an important part of our overall marketing strategy for 2010. For a start, we will be looking to increase our online marketing spend. This will give us a greater web presence and help to enhance our ability to reach out to our customers online. There will also be a series of tactical online campaigns lined up for 2010 which we believe will help drive traffic to our website (banyantree.com) and incentivise our customers to book directly with us. Similar campaigns implemented over the course of 2009 saw a significant surge in terms of web traffic and direct online bookings, and we expect 20% of all bookings to come through online channels by next year.
In addition, we have invested resources towards improving our brand’s visibility on search engines. We are also boosting our back-end systems - starting next year, we will be migrating to the Opera Web Suite booking engine, which will ensure a more seamless reservations process and greater customization through an integrated platform.
Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Xing.com, linkedin.com are widely used for business & personal networking online. How does Banyan Tree Holdings plan to use Social media?
In today’s online and highly connected world, talk spreads fast. At the same time, the days of one-way corporate messaging are over. Customer engagement is more important than ever - consumers are increasingly expecting more interactive experiences premised on a two-way communications platform.
In order to effectively navigate this rapidly evolving landscape and shift in marketing mindset, part of our strategy going forward will be to leverage the sophistication of the internet and social media to complement our existing marketing approach. We will proactively target and engage online communities of existing and potential customers through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, internet forums, weblogs and viral marketing campaigns.
Do you think entrepreneurs are important to society and why?
Entrepreneurs are often simply people who see opportunities in things others may not see. They help to create a unique perspective on the world, which is an important advantage in business. The successful ones are usually those who have anticipated the risks, and have made carefully calculated risks.
You have been in key business positions, what are the most challenging moments in business & how did you deal with it?
The biggest challenge when I started was to build a consumer brand which had to be sustainable, not only in Asia, but in a globalised marketplace. At Banyan Tree, our brand is a proprietary advantage to counter cost pressures. If we were to survive in a global marketplace – and hospitality is perhaps one of the most global, because high-end tourists can easily choose between say, Portugal or Phuket, Greenland or Greece – we must be able to be among the best of breed not only in our back yard but in whatever markets our customers will go to.
This strategy was the only way we could be a price-maker and not price-taker. Any enterprise, even with innovations, can only set its own price until cheaper competitors emerge. In our case, innovative features such as pool villas and tropical spa pavilions, were no longer a monopoly of Banyan Tree. With competitors emerging, the only way we could remain above price wars was to leverage the brand to generate a price premium and customer loyalty.
We intuitively knew that a successful brand was not only about specific product or service features, but about evoking emotional responses from our customers. Through the Banyan Tree experience which sought to evoke romance and intimacy, we saw ourselves as the facilitators of very memorable and meaningful experiences for our guests. We felt that if we were able to elicit an emotional response from them towards us, it will always remain top of mind, and gives us the advantage of brand loyalty.
What must business owners focus on to stride through this current business climate?
The Banyan Tree brand-building lesson for other companies is that focusing on a specific product feature or innovation by itself is not enough to ensure brand success. Whether in good times or bad, you must ask yourself: what emotions do I want my customer to associate with my brand? And then painstakingly shape your product and service features – and of course your external advertising and marketing communications - to solicit that emotional response. The way forward is to leverage the brand to generate a price premium and customer loyalty. Those who continue to invest in their brand and who have built innovation and creativity into their business will have an edge over their competition.
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