Profit By Design

Marriott International’s Michael Wang, Senior Continent Head of Global Design for Asia Pacific Region, spells out how the future of hotels is being redefined, with Asia Pacific reacting faster to the market than anybody else.

- Gurmeet Sachdev

The Marriott Global Design Asia Pacific Confluence 2018 was not just another event that was designed to impress Indian designers and hotel owners. It was a unique platform designed to unlock minds and awaken ideas.

Michael Wang, Senior Continent Head of Global Design for Asia Pacific Region, was clear about the agenda of the first-of-its-kind ‘design confluence’ that was co-created by Hotelier India: to explore great Indian architects and designers, who lacked exposure to world-class events like these. More to the point, this was the need of the hour as Asia Pacific, according to him, was reacting faster to the market changes than anybody else.

“It is just the beginning,” admitted Wang, who has expanded Marriott’s portfolio from 16 to 560 hotels across the continent and is currently overseeing 600 hotel projects in varying stages of completion. “However, summits like these will help understand what Marriott designing is about, all our brands, the segmentation, with tools of hotel design, and this will rapidly start increasing the number of architects and designers in India who can start to support us.”

The audience ranging from hotel developers and owners to project heads and project management consultants to architects, interior designers heard Wang in rapt attention as he succinctly explained the “direct correlation between a strategy hotel versus a hotel that does not follow design standards.” Owners who develop hotels within budget and within strategy do much better on RoI, he said flatly as he spoke at length on Marriott’s brand design standards across its 30 brand portfolio and what goes into the making of a world-class hotel experience with a best-in-class design philosophy.