Golf drives promotion
By Yayu Wu & Jean Chen
Photos by Yao Fan

这两年, 厦门已经逐渐形成了高尔夫旅游经济现象, 推动了厦门旅游经济的发展. 而伴随厦门城市发展13年的厦门海景皇冠假日酒店不仅拥有全市惟一一家高尔夫球主题吧, 同时已经连续7年举办面向东南亚的高尔夫球邀请赛. 任职酒店总经理5年的詹荣昌先生不仅见证了海景皇冠假日酒店的成长历程, 而且他带领酒店员工提供全套的高尔夫后勤服务, 使酒店成为该领域的推动者与先锋力量.

Pioneer to encourage golf economics

Due to convenient transportation for the past two years, over 5,000 Korean and Japanese visitors have flown to Xiamen every month for golf from November to July. Xiamen has gradually formed a particular economic pattern of golf travel, which surely will promote its economic development.
It is known to all that Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen has the only golf bar in this city. Furthermore, the hotel has successfully organized seven successive international invitation tournaments. It is definitely the first of its kind in this city.



Q: What have you done for this amazing field with your staff, considering that you yourself are an excellent golf amateur of 6-years?
A: The most important feature is a magic weapon for our business. Golf is definitely a lasting topic. Golf is quite popular in some developed countries. One of my friends, a Canadian, plays golf every day at a golf court which is only two blocks away from his house.
We provide this type of special golf bar as a relatively private area for junior golf learners to acquire practice and experience. With the mini driving range in the bar, guests can practice their skills while enjoying the performance of world-top golfers on TV.
As for golf, we spare no effort to provide guests a complete set of services. As a result, the booking rate has been increasing every year.

Customer satisfaction

Q: When asked about your understanding of the concept of "Customer satisfaction" during an interview in Shenzhen years ago, you made an excellent expression of the hotel's internal terms. Meanwhile, you introduced several methods and policies to improve the hotel's service quality. Would you like to make some suggestions expanding on this since you are the first general manager Common Talk has ever interviewed in this servicing field?
A: As for Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen, there are four key factors.
First of all, our hotel has implemented a special testing system - Guest satisfaction chasing system. Those guests who stay in our hotel for over four days will get an enclosed questionnaire before they check out. In this questionnaire they will be expected to answer a series of questions concerning all of the services guests receive. For any of our hotels, every month there are at least one hundred answering sheets that are sent directly to the headquarters. The headquarters consign a professional company to do an overall evaluation. If any hotel fails to exceed the average standard, the general manager will be forced to resign and all services will be reformed.
Though the competition is tough among the three hundred hotels in the Asia Pacific area, our hotel has remained among the Top Ten for many successive years.
Secondly, it is beyond all doubt that the hardware should be kept at a state-of-the-art level all the time to meet guests' demands.
Thirdly, our hotel will make some adjustment concerning the specific requirements of the local market while carrying out policies of the InterContinental Hotels Group.
Last but not least, keeping a theme is necessary for a hotel to persist longer in the leading position, so we have put forward deluxe CPC rooms (皇冠豪华商务客房) into the market since March this year.



Innovation as motivation

Q: What are the qualifications of being a successful top manager? How do you evaluate a working team?
A: Three things are necessary: good education, talent in leadership and innovation.
It is unquestionably a competitive society. Nothing can possibly last forever. Under pressure, something has to be done to keep in track with the changing world. Only those who stand in the leading position can remain in the highest line of sight.
Sometimes it might not be a bad thing if the person in a high position is more subjective than usual. With his rich working experience and style, the leader can be endowed with greater innovation and a wider range of new concepts, and therefore can lead his team in a more advanced way.
For certain, we can't forget team spirit. Naturally, during the whole process others' good suggestions will be offered at any time to better achieve the expected goal.
As for a good working team, prompt communication should be the first and foremost. I should say that the staff of Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen is an excellent team. All the staff members belong to a large family. I go to dinner with my faculty once or twice a month in our staff canteen to share ideas.



Suggestion for Xiamen

Q: As a top manager serving for hotels, with an entire global background, what impresses you most about Xiamen in comparison with other cities? Can you offer some suggestions for the development of Xiamen?
A: Different cities have different characteristics. It is well known that Beijing is famous for its colorful culture and long history, while a typical commercial atmosphere surrounds Shanghai. But in everyone's mind, Xiamen is full of attraction with its cozy atmosphere, surely making it a good place to live. Every time I leave, I am eager to come back.
We should not ignore one point, which is, for the moment Xiamen might not rise to the top as Shanghai has. However, any visitor who has visited this city wants to come again.
Xiamen can learn and adopt some methods from Sentosa of Singapore. As a world renowned sightseeing location, Sentosa is equipped with a one-track trolley, spanning throughout the whole island. Tourists there can get off and on at any stop for free if they want to get a closer touch with the seashore or delightful sand anywhere around the coastal line.
To my delight, Xiamen has been unveiling more and more attractions to the outside world.

Feature of Crowne Plaza: E-café

If guests feel lonely working with computers in their rooms, they currently have a better choice.
Crowne Plaza Harbourview Xiamen has provided a special E-café where guests have access to the Internet for one hour if they order just one coffee. There are eight seats available, each of which enjoys a different view of scenery through the windows. That idea came out of one of Mr. Simon Jim's business trips to Japan, where he watched Japanese finish their work with such convenient equipment before they entered their offices. Inspired by it, Jim started to create the E-café in the hotel when he came back to Xiamen.