Home sweet boutique hotel
It’s not easy being away from home, but thankfully, there’s your home sweet boutique hotel that’s got the comforts of a hotel but is delightfully not stiff and intimidating at all. You step into its snazzy bright lobby and you’re warmly welcomed by the friendly staff. Suddenly, you feel you can’t be too far away from home.
Amid the city’s bustling skyline, you’ll find a growing chain of con-
cept hotels and serviced residences managed by Hospitality Innovators, Inc. (HII) who transforms ordinary properties into concept spaces and creates exciting destinations and memorable experiences for guests.
“We’re going 16 years now with 14 properties,” says HII founder and chief executive officer Luis C. Monserrat with a big disarming smile. “We’ve been handling properties since 1999, starting out with just one property, Parque España.”
Starting out in banking, going into consumer goods and working with multinational companies, Monserrat became an entrepreneur late in his life. He confesses, “From my early days in college, the idea of becoming an entrepreneur appealed to me, but I was not raised in a family of entrepreneurs, my father was a professional. For more than 20 years, I worked in corporations, but I felt that something was missing and I just sort of concluded I wanted to do something on my own, to go on my own. But getting into this kind of business shouldn’t happen by accident. So when I got into it, I had to learn the business because even if I had a long career, I didn’t know hotels. So what we tried to do when we started the company was we didn’t want to develop or build a brand or to promote ourselves. We moved very slowly in the beginning and it was only when we got to a point where we really understood the business and were already building a track record that we started to take on more properties.”
HII, or simply HI (a friendly greeting that gives you a clue of what to expect from its people), has slowly but surely carved a name for itself in the industry. For the most part, its target market has been the business traveler, the corporate market. “Since most of our properties are situated in cities, in central business districts, they tend to be business/corporate, although now, you can see there’s a growing trend among locals to do staycations,” notes Monserrat. “Some of our properties have more of that already, that’s a growing segment in our mix right now.”
U nheard of until about 10 years ago, staycations ( or staying home instead of vacationing elsewhere) rose in popularity with the economic downturn.
Well, it’s nice — and cheaper — to get away without really going too far away from home.
“Some of our properties cater to young staycationers, like Azumi in Alabang,” Monserrat discloses.
What with all the budget fares and budget hotels, young people are much more travel-minded now. But certainly, they’d go to a place where the ambience is warmer, vis-a-vis a hotel, and the price is kinder.
“If you compare us to four- or five-star hotels, our rates are friendly, but the pricing in our industry is very complicated,” Monserrat points out. “It will vary depending on the occupancy, on the room type, and also on the market segment. But if you were to pick a simple average rate, let’s say for a standard room or studio, the price to the consumer would be anywhere from P4,500 to P5,000 — and that’s all in, including tax and service charge. If you go to a four or five-star hotel, you’ll probably be paying P7,000 to P10,000 ++ per night. I think we have better value because our rate is lower, yet you have something more comfortable, more spacious.”
While all properties managed by HII observe the highest standards of performance, each one has a distinctly different charm. For instance, the Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences in Salcedo Village, Makati boasts a creative and classy design true its namesake artist. The Henry Cebu features 38 rooms replete with fine art collectibles from around the world while the newly opened The Henry Manila exudes a nostalgic appeal with its five post-war style houses with rooms adorned
with modern vintage furnishings.
It’s really a question of what you’re after. Like Azumi in Alabang would have a lot of golf groups because it’s close to the golf courses.
“In terms of location, our products usually are as good as the hotels though the hotels tend to be more amenity-rich,” says Monserrat. “Guests have many more choices than in ours where we basically have only one restaurant, but for us, we feel in the end that’s not a big trade-off for the guest because our locations are such that there are so many eating choices around the area.”
There are long- staying guests, or those who stay for a week or more than four weeks, or maybe three months. Yes, there are a lot of repeat guests, too, and maybe for sentimental reasons, some ask for the same room. Request granted as long as they book in advance.
No request is too impossible for HII people who try to make their service as personalized as possible. “Of course, everybody says that,” says the charismatic Monserrat. “We just try to make sure we do it consistently and we really take it seriously. Our goal is to make sure our guests are satisfied with their experience with us.”
If you read the reviews on HII properties online, what guests commonly rave about is the great, personalized, going-the-extra-mile service. Fact is, HII properties have received awards from major travel websites: Among them is Picasso’s TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence in 2014. Along with Y2 Residence Hotel, Picasso is consistently named as one of TripAdvisor’s Top 10 Hotels in Makati.
Always full of innovative ideas, Luis Monserrat prefers to stay in boutique hotels, where he can get more ideas, rather than hotel chains whenever he travels. “What I aspire for is a product where our people can give guests the same kind of service, that quality of service that the Ritz Carlton gives but at a fraction of a price that the Ritz charges.”
This visionary, forward-looking CEO declares, “For our company now, my main objective as a CEO is to grow our business some more. I see three or four pathways to growth. One pathway is where we’re on now, to continue to manage third party properties — I think there’s still a lot of potential growth there because we’re getting approached now by more and more developers and property owners. The second avenue is to do what the big boys are doing, to create our own hotel brand and build a chain of hotels under that brand (think Seda of Ayala), but that requires deep pockets. The third pathway is for us to get into more provincial markets — Central Luzon, Pampanga, Clark, Pangasinan, Baguio, Bacolod. The fourth avenue is to get different products — for example, resorts and retirement facilities.”
He adds with a deep sigh, “I hope I can get it started within my lifetime, but definitely, one of the other key priorities that I have is to be able to build an organization that will outlast me and make all this come true.”
With his heart in the right place and his passion for innovation, Luis Monserrat’s dreams for his company may not be impossible at all.
***