FOXTROTS

 

 

Fox – sly.  Trots – left-leaning (Trotsky) plus its more insalubrious meaning. 

Foxtrots – leading the industry in a dance.

 

 

2008 May 06

 

Hotels. Slanging Langham.

My hotel management skills are well known (albeit amongst a tiny and dwindling band of supporters) so I feel confident to detail my view of the current situation at Langham Hotels. And at the same time, make a bid to write a strategic review for the company, which will surely be commissioned soon.

 

Firstly, I note that the company’s expansion has burgeoned since the previous operational head of the company, Kevin Murphy, who has met me, left the company two years ago. Latest are in Shanghai and Krabi, Thailand. Earlier post-Murphy expansion has been in China – Beijing (two, due in 2008) and Changchun (due in 2009).

 

In his time, Murphy himself presided over four conversions from other hotel management companies to the Langham brand (one of which, from Hilton in London, also brought the Langham name). And including changing the group name from Great Eagle Hotels to give the group eight hotels, although two still do not carry the Langham name. But widespread – nothing in Asia, for instance, apart from home-base Hong Kong.

 

Were these new contracts stored up, or is the new post-Murphy team more effective?

 

Secondly, the man now under the spotlight is K S Lo, chairman and part-owner of the group, no less. Earlier, Lo, who has met me, had been a public figure in Hong Kong but was less visible during Murphy’s tenure, although he was still involved with the company. Lo is a qualified architect, and is the brother – somewhat estranged – of Y S Lo, who has met me, and who runs the rival Regal Hotels group in HK.

 

Thirdly, there is the environment. One of Langham’s new contracts is in Krabi, for what it calls an eco resort. But all I can find (admittedly I did not look very hard) is that the resort is being built in an untouched part of the country, ergo, the resort is ecologically-friendly.

 

This is not quite what I understood by ‘eco’, although there are many others who are stretching the definition of what is EF.

 

Fourthly, brands. The company has two main brandnames – Langham and Langham Place – but the difference between the two is not always easy to see. Langham tends to be more upmarket and, sometimes, have old-style-cum-‘heritage’ architecture.

 

But some new signings are mixing the message. Shanghai, for instance, is a Langham, but it also gets a ‘boutique’ appendage – yes, because it is small. And that resort in Thailand, as well as being an ‘eco resort’, is a Langham Place. I believe that this is starting to get a bit difficult for customers, not just me, to follow.

 

The Fox