Five-star Luxury Hotel Group Boosts Non-room Revenues With Localised Stores

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A Hong Kong luxury hotel development group with ten properties around the world was seeking to extend its hospitality services to retail; enabling guests and locals to take the luxury hotel experience back home and gift to friends.

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Under its guest experiences initiative, the hotel group looks to enhance flexibility, comfort and convenience to its visitors. Going beyond hotel room stays, the hotel launched gift cards to share experiences and its world-class amenities with loved ones.

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In 2020, the hotel group rolled out an online platform that extended its products and services with merchandise tailored to the region. A centralised platform with a multi-shopfront was built with Techsembly’s enterprise solutions, enabling multi-currency and languages with custom merchandise according to region. Staying true to its global branding, the hotel is now able to celebrate Mid-Autumn festival in Hong Kong with their signature mooncakes while selling afternoon tea packages in Chicago - allowing consumers to transverse between cities and shop for different localised goods across its localised entities.

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While the central office has complete control and brand visibility across each property, the localised marketplace solution empowers each local team with its own shopfront and dashboard to tailor specific promotions and offerings without diluting the brand value.

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THE OBJECTIVES:

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The hotel portfolio of the Group comprises of properties in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, New York, Chicago, Beverly Hills, Tokyo, Bangkok, Manila and Paris. Key objectives are to develop storefronts for each market, with the following features:

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• To build a multi-shopfront boutique with a centralised backend system to improve on efficiencies and communications across global teams.
• The transactional site needs to offer multi-currency options in multiple languages, and facilitate in curating different merchandise for the specific region.
• New e-Commerce platform can connect with existing gift card system
• Customisable components available for merchandise and dining options

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THE CHALLENGE:

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In reflection of its international branding, the e-commerce platform needs to encompass the global mindset but with a local touch, offering merchandise and experiences that are specific to the region, whilst enabling personalisation. Adding on physical products, experiences and F&B offerings to its existing gift card services now also requires a unified basket system. Having multiple sites for different countries also meant multiple statements from online payment gateways, making it difficult for accurate and efficient consolidation.

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THE SOLUTION:

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Techsembly and the hotel development worked closely to build a unique platform that allowed them to operate multiple localised storefronts through a single centralised platform, ensuring each local storefront is tailored to the needs of local audiences. The hotel currently runs localised storefronts in Hong Kong, New York, Beverly Hills, Paris and Chicago with goals of further expansion for the Rest of the World, with transactions and languages adapted to the respective countries and different currencies to cater to the global consumer.

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QUOTE:

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“The flexibility and helpful account service provided by the Techsembly team helped us successfully launch our global e-shops. The Techsembly team stayed with us throughout the whole process and every step of the way whilst launching the e-shops, which made us feel we were always supported and not left alone in the dark.” - Head of e-commerce

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THE OUTCOME:

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• Customers are able to customise gift card denomination and format (physical or electronic)
• Expand product portfolio from gifting services to branded merchandise and signature hotel goods. Order mooncakes in Hong Kong and chocolates from Paris to celebrate local delicacies
• Additional revenue streams were achieved, with average order value of USD$400 and a 3% conversion rate per sale
• Finance team able to download reports through an exclusive micro-site service, that syncs payouts with order IDs and by store
• Sell signature dishes directly through website, reducing the margin paid to food delivery apps eliminating the 30% commission by selling popular items directly to consumer
• Enable consumer to customise F&B ordering in detail - from starter, mains and all through to dessert with various options of delivery best suited for the client
• Digitise room service ordering within platform
• Work synchronously with teams across the globe and more through remote collaboration in the build of the new website
• Provided additional enterprise support and dedicated customer service solutions for the brand
• Delegate day-to-day management to in-market team in order to capture local promotional and merchandising opportunities
• Remain consistent branding across all properties through a centrally-managed dashboard
• Drive traffic via own marketing campaigns, easy extension into social media channels in order to increase awareness & site visits
• SEO optimised, and fully accessible via mobile, tablet and desktop
• Stringent information management system & data protection with ISO27001 GIC qualification
• Successful implementation led to expansion across other entities with the hotel portfolio

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