Hotels in the blood

Austrian Alps

The hotel business is in Wolfgang Meusburger's blood; his family owned a hotel business in Austria. By the time he was in his teens, he had already gained experience in the industry by working in a variety of places, including several ski resorts in Austria. He then went to college to study the theoretical side of the hotel business. Before moving to work in Thailand, he was No 2 at a luxury resort with 100 rooms; his direct boss was the hotel owner.

But in 1989 he decided to head for Asia. Why did he drop what looked like a plum job to move halfway round the world? “It all happened when I joined a hotel seminar in Lausanne. There were a lot of Asians in the class - in fact more than half the class. My interest in Asia grew from talking to them,” Mr Meusburger explains. He landed a job in Thailand and has been in the country ever since.

Culture shock

Holiday Inn Phuket swimming pool

This Austrian who had never set foot in this part of the world started working in a hotel in Bangkok. The first six or seven months in the city were hard, he says. What he found difficult was the culture shock and the bad traffic. “But I told myself that I would give it a year. If I still didn’t like it, then I would just move back home,” he says.
Before that deadline he had got used to living in Bangkok and was starting to enjoy working in Thailand.

Time flew by. Two years later he was appointed hotel executive assistant manager in charge of F&B at the Holiday Inn Phuket. Sixteen years on, he is still at the hotel.
In that time, his job has grown, first to GM and then Regional GM. The hotel in Patong, too, has grown, from 265 rooms when he arrived to 405 today.
What has kept him with the same hotel so long? First, he says, he very much enjoys what he is doing. He also “reinvents” himself every two or three years. “You have to know what you are doing, what other people and hotels are doing, to stay in touch with customers and open your eyes to see what is going on around you. I'm not talking only about the hotel business but about the wider tourism business - things such as how the airlines and the e-commerce business are doing, for example. Most of all, you have to keep on trying new things all the time,” he explains.

Good combinations

Wolfgang Meusburger and an employee

Mr Meusburger says he is lucky to work with a hotel owner that is willing to invest. Also, because he has worked with the same hotel management company for so long, the company understands his working style. Both parties give him freedom to run the business, which he believes is very important for any hotel GM.

“Both the owner and my company trust me. In this line of work, [the bosses] can't check every detail. If you are not given an opportunity to grow and a chance to do the work your way, then how can the business move forward? If, over the past 16 years, nothing had changed in this hotel, I would not have stayed this long,” he smiles.

One other asset he brought with him from his days of study in Lausanne was a close friendship with a fellow-classmate, Tasnee Yangseenat from Thailand. “When I first moved to Bangkok, I would asked Tasnee (who at that time was working in the same line of business both in Bangkok and later on in Phuket) for her opinions about things. There was no romantic feeling at that time - that came later,” he grins. When that did happen, they married. Khun Tasnee is no stranger to Phuket.com magazine; she is the Chief Operations Officer of Asia Web Direct Co Ltd, which owns the magazine.

A man with three hats

Holiday Inn Phi Phi

Mr Meusburger is the Regional General Manager of IHG’s hotels in southern Thailand, in charge of three hotels at once.

The Holiday Inn Phuket is his base, but he is also boss of the Holiday Inn Resort Regent Beach Cha-Am and the Holiday Inn Resort & Hotel Phi Phi Island.

“The other two hotels each have a GM. I visit them every two months.”

Job-hoppers

Mr. Meusburger and reception trainees

As a team leader, Mr Meusburger believes that it is important to explain to team members why you are doing this and that in order to get them involved and motivated. It is also most important to celebrate successes with the team.
Having been in hotel business for a couple of decades, Mr Meusburger notes that many of the more junior staff are impatient and want to try to move up the ladder fast. He has his reservations: “I don’t believe that, after graduating from school and working for three or four years, one can become a manager. A person might have tactical advantage in terms of the job but I don't think they have enough skills in managing people. That comes only with experience,” he says firmly.

Money is, of course, a central factor in young people’s impatience and job-hopping. Five-star hotels in Phuket pay as much as 2½ times the salaries paid by hotels with fewer stars. So he understands why people get itchy feet. If staff in his hotel want to make a move and then later on want to come back, he says they are welcome because the experience has usually improved their working or management skills and they can bring back fresh ideas. “We don’t have a black list for people who leave us - except in cases involving issues such as dishonesty. I believe people deserve to get better opportunities. If they feel a need to move on with their career, we respect that,” says Mr Meusburger.

Getting feedback

New Patong one-way traffic system

Over the past 16 years, Mr Meusburger has seen a great deal of change in Patong. The place is now a small city. When the new Patong one-way traffic system was introduced early this year, public opinion was divided over it, Mr Meusburger, too, is not entirely in favor - or against. “Overall, it has helped to reduce traffic, but it is not good to have such heavy traffic along the beach road,” he says.
As mentioned, he is the kind of hotelier who enjoys spending time with guests. He also finds that it is the best way to learn about the hotel - both the good and the bad. “Don't forget that we sometime have repeat guests who have dined in the same restaurant or used the same facility many times. These people know my staff and our service well. If there are problems, comments or news, the guests will share it with me - like the new traffic system, for example: our guests say they find it harder to walk on the beach road because of the busier traffic.

What Patong needs

Patong Beach before the one-way system

“They also comment about the increasing tuk-tuk fares. I think Patong should have a better public transport system and much fairer pricing,” says Mr Meusburger. “It should also have better parking facilities. In fact, there should be one parking space at each end of Patong Beach. Then they should do something about the beach road. For example, they could leave one lane clear for pedestrians and another lane could be reserved for tuk-tuks to serve people.”

He has a very high regard for what the Kata-Karon Hotels Association have done for their area, and believes that Patong business people should have done a better job. “The Kata-Karon Hotels Association have done a fine job, perhaps because most of them are business owners from the area, unlike in Patong, where the business owners are from everywhere and are not united.”

He thinks that Patong Municipality should not bear all the responsibility for organizing Patong better. “The municipality cannot do much because of the limited budget they get from Bangkok, which is based on the number of people registered as living in the town. Most people know that household registration numbers bear no resemblance to reality,” he says.

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