A New Vision of Hospitality

Hotel management company Artyzen embraces art, culture and emotional wisdom as its operating philosophy, president Robbert Van Der Maas telss Denmis Fahy

The President of Artyzen Hospitality, Robbert Van Der Maas, says the brand is focused on experiences rather than amenities

Tell us about your background and how you got involved with cofounding Artyzen

I came to Asia in the early 80s, and was responsible for the opening of the Grand Hyatt Bali. then was in Japan in the early 90s. In 2005, I opened two hotels in the Maldives for the Four Seasons. It was difficult for the family, so I joined MGM Macau as vice president of hotel operations in 2007. I was with MGM for six years, and thinking about early retirement, then was approached to see if I was interested in conceptualising a new hotel management concept. We came up with Atyzen, and launched in 2013.

What made you change your mind about retiring?

I was trusted to lead the company, and I like to create things and have a lot of energy. I thought about it long and hard, and it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. From a financial perspective, hotels aren’t that exciting, although hotel owners in Hong Kong are much more financially savvy and better are reading the market than most. I’ve worked for two of the best companies in the industry – Four Seasons and Hyatt – and I’m still very impressed with their approach. But for the rest of the industry, hotels have become commodities, and they’re all kind of the same.

What was your inspiration for the Artyzen concept?

We had to appreciate that customers today probably know more about our city than us. They’re always on their phone, and this is where things have changed. They are looking for experiences and memories, it’s not necessarily about the hotel and how big the rooms are, or how many restaurants they have

– it’s just regarded as somewhere to sleep and eat. We saw an opportunity to serve these new consumers, and have taken art, culture and emotional wisdom as our drivers.

Your brands include Zitan, Artyzen Hotels & Resorts and Artyzen Habitat. What makes your hospitality group so special?

I’ve spent 37 years in Asia, so I understand the market well. I saw the opportunity to create something to serve these new consumers and their wants and needs.

You’ve taken over one of Macau’s most interesting heritage properties, the Grand Lapa Macau…

Yes, we turned that around in six months and completed a major renovation that is just about to finish it. We’ve repositioned it as a very nice artisan hotel.

While most of your hotels are in Asia, you have even gone as far afield as Hawaii…

We never planned to do that - we were asked to go, the hotel owner reached us through a middle man. So we visited the Ka’anpali Beach Hotel, which hadn’t been renovated in 35 years, and found it had this incredible magic. They asked us to preserve the culture and heritage of Hawaii through the hotel, which is hopefully what we’ve done.

What’s your strategy been to grow the business?

As we’re a startup and built our brand from scratch, our idea was to focus on clustering, expanding our base from where we already have properties. We are just looking at opening a hotel across the border from Macau, for example. We set an office in

Shanghai, and will open hotels there, as well as in cities within a one-hour radius of Shanghai. We have Singapore confirmed, then in Western China we have Chongqing, and in Beijing several properties are currently under discussion.

With places like Chongqing, people tend to visit just for business…

But a lot of business travellers combine trips with leisure, and hang on for one or two nights. I don’t believe in the full separation of business and leisure classification any more. We’re definitely interested in having a presence in gateway cities, and identifying heritage from which we can build our hotel stories. If you go to an industrial city, you can still find heritage and culture.

Many of your hotels will open in 2021 and 2022, including a property in Singapore. Tell us about that

In Singapore, a lot of the five-star hotels, represent western historical culture like Raffles and so on. So we started to build the story on the Peranakan culture and bring that to the forefront. We’re starting to do the same in Shanghai too.

You’ve got around seven hotels opening in Asia in the next few years. What’s next?

We’re actively discussing Melbourne, Myanmar and Bangkok, and having discussions in Japan, even Europe. People are starting to be aware of what we do. Our first brands have created a lot of conversation, and we had a large influx of architectural firms come to look at our property in Shanghai. 2021 will be an important year for us, as we’ll open several hotels, and are already putting the teams and other resources together. artyzen.com