Skip to main content

The Biggest Challenge and the Hidden Opportunity of Entering the Chinese Market

Starwood’s top executives are in Shanghai, China now. They will stay there for a month to get “localized” by the Chinese culture and “Chinese way” of doing business. In this MSNBC News video, Frits van Paasschen, the President and CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide provided many good reasons of why Starwood needs to pay top attention to the Chinese market. I agree with him 100% and will not repeat what he said on the video. Instead, I would like to bring up one challenge and one hidden opportunity of entering the Chinese market.

I believe that the biggest challenge is to manage a company’s human capital in China, including recruitment and selection, training and development, and retention management. It is very difficult to recruit well-trained local managerial talents in China. Companies may assume that there must be abundant good candidates in a country with a population of 1.3 billion people. Yet, not every candidate has the proper education or training that a company desires; many college graduates are “book-smart” and needs extra training before they are ready to make sound business decisions on their own. Accordingly, companies need to plan a large budget for some very basic HR functions.

Another relevant area that needs special attention is employee retention. If Starwood is opening a new hotel every other week in China, other hotel companies, like Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton, will not fall behind. Hotels are competing with one another to attract the top talents in a very small pool. If hotels do not want to see their well-trained managers working for their competitors, they had better take good care of their people and keep them aboard.

The huge hidden opportunity of entering the Chinese market lies in the advantage of gaining brand recognition among the Chinese consumers in China. Even though many developed countries still have very tight restrictions of issuing visa to Chinese travellers, I believe these countries, including the U.S., will open their tourist market to Chinese travellers soon. By then, if 1% Chinese will make their own travel arrangements to the U.S., those well-recognized hotel brands, as compared to the other local hotel chains, will probably have a better chance of attracting the 13,000,000 outbound Chinese travellers. Who does not want that business?

 
References:
The picture was downloaded from travelchinatour.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Luxury vs. Millennials and Their Technology: The Ritz-Carlton (By Julia Shorr)

Embodying the finest luxury experience, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC has been established since 1983. In 1998, Marriott International purchased the brand offering it more opportunity for growth while being independently owned and operated. They are known for their enhanced service level as the motto states, “Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”. The luxury brand now carries 97 hotels and resorts internationally and is attempting to keep the aspects of luxury while keeping up with the trends of the technologically improving generations. The Varying Demographics of the Target Market The Ritz-Carlton’s typical target market includes: business executives, corporate, leisure travelers, typically middle-aged persons and elders, and families from the upper and upper-middle class section of society .   This infers a large range of types of travelers in which all are similar in that they are not opposed to spending extra for the luxurious ambiance. However, with

The challenges of SB 93 (California Senate Bill No. 93) will impose on the employers and their human resource management team (by Brittany Schaffer)

The COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, and it has caused massive changes within a short period of time. One of the most rememberable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was that businesses had to come to a complete halt, forcing them to lay off employees. California's unemployment rates went up.  Now that the stay-at-home orders have lifted, people start to come out. Businesses are now reopening, looking to rehire their laid-off employees. Before the pandemic, employers had the option of recalling only a certain number of laid-off employees they would want to rehire based on employees' job performance. That option had been changed after Governor Gavin Newsome signed into law - Senate Bill 93, which went into effect on April 16th, 2021. The California Senate Bill No. 93 (SB 93) According to SB 93, companies in specific industries, mainly the hospitality industry, have the obligation to provide job opportunities in written form to qualified employees being laid off due to COVI

Is It OK for Hotel Staff to Wear Piercings and Tattoos?

Time has changed. I see more and more college students wearing piercings and tattoos nowadays, but is it OK for hotel staff to wear piercings and tattoos? The answer is “no, no, no.” According a report at USAToday.com, customers across the board do not want to see any hotel workers with pierced eyebrow, pierced tongue, tattooed arm, or nose ring. Some may argue that tattooed and pierced workers may seem more acceptable in edgy boutique hotels as compared to the big franchised hotels, but the survey results did not find any differences among a variety of lodging products. Many respondents believe people who wear visible tattoos and piercings are taking a high risk of their professional lives. If you stay in a hotel, do you mind being served by tattooed and/or pierced staff? What if you are the one who makes the hiring decision? References: USAToday.com: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok08042010 Picture was downloaded from http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok08042010P