Originally Posted by Skillet
Since this seems to be a general post on all things Golden Circle, I would like to know if anyone has seen any differences between licensed Shangri-La properties versus owned properties.
I hads never stayed at a Shangri-La until this year, but now I have spent >20 days in the past three months at the Taipei Far Eastern (licensed, as far as I can tell) with a stay at the S'pore Traders in between. I am not seeing anything special in Taipei but I just loved the Traders ^ .
The Far Eastern seems to confuse luxury to mean elegant inconvenience. In fact the weird little things at the Far Eastern are more annoying than anything else e.g. no pens - only pencils, a metal room key (but it acts like a key card), no alarm clock just that cheap "control" panel, etc. It is not as wacky as the Grand Hotel in Taipei, but it is close.
Is the Far Eastern comparable to owned Shangri-La hotels?
Gosh, Skillet, what a great topic!
I had breakfast with the new manager of the Sentosa, Singapore, Shangri-la, Mr. Powell, about a week ago, who told me that the trend within Shangri-la was to manage properties not owned by Shangri-la as they were devoting excessive assets to the investment side rather than exploiting the name branding-service side of their business. We spent about an hour talking about a number of subjects but I did not ask the relative percentage of their service vs ownership position worldwide. I have the impression that they are for sure planning to manage more than invest in the future.
From my experience, I have spent my time (more than 60 nights per year for two years) in Shangri-la
owned facilities. I have no experience in
licensed unites although I understand that the USA faciilites are licensed rather than owned. Of course you know that a single gentlemen owns the controlling interest in Shangri-la and he makes the individual decisions. (Wish I were so lucky!).
Best regards,
LWW