Millennium Hilton's renewed F&B service appealing to guests
The inside of the Millennium Seoul Hilton / Courtesy of the Millennium Seoul Hilton
By Kang Seung-woo
As the Korean hotel industry is becoming a closely contested battlefield with more and more hotels popping up, each hotel is doing all it can to come up with eye-catching strategies to attract more guests.
Tom Wang, director of sales and marketing at the Millennium Seoul Hilton
However, Tom Wang, director of sales and marketing at the Millennium Seoul Hilton, believes the hotel's renovated food and beverage (F&B) service will relieve his headache over the tougher competition.
“We've made changes in food and beverage that are very positive,” Wang said in an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.
The cards that the Singaporean keeps close to his chest are an industry-first “live-sharing” afternoon tea service and happy hour buffets.
“The new executive chef brought some great ideas of a live-sharing afternoon tea. We used to have an afternoon tea, but compared to the live-sharing afternoon tea, is a totally different experience,” Wang said.
“Especially, young ladies and family members are crazy about this concept.”
According to Wang, the chef draws a piece of art in front of respective guests, encouraging them to engage with the process of painting art.
“It is very beautiful and after the 10-minute presentation, you will be able to enjoy the live-sharing afternoon tea and three tiers of sandwiches,” Wang said.
“It is a good concept and the market response is really good.”
Wang also said two happy hour buffet services by the Oak Room, the hotel's English-style bar, would help boost the Millennium Hilton's F&B service.
There are the Oak Room Happy Hour Buffet, offered Saturday through Wednesday, and the Happy Hour BBQ Buffet, available on Thursday and Friday.
“Guests can sit back with friends and colleagues as they enjoy the great ambience, great drinks and delicious food,” he said.
New source market
When Wang took the position last September, his mission was to bring in revenue and maximize the hotel's engagements with clients and people.
As part of the efforts to increase profits, he has set his sights on making some new source markets, such as Southeast Asian countries, after Chinese tourists stopped visiting here due to the diplomatic row between Seoul and Beijing.
“In the past, we had very strong business with Japanese and Chinese travelers. Due to some obvious reasons, Chinese travelers have stopped coming since March last year so we needed to develop new source markets and new business opportunities. They are Southeast Asia and Europe,” Wang said.
Southeast Asia is always one of the target markets for the Korean Tourism Organization, he noted.
“I am sure you see that Korean dramas and K-pop are really popular in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines,” the director said.
“So we have strong requests from, especially, Malaysia and Indonesia because the populations of those countries are huge. Indonesia has a population of more than 100 million people. For Malaysia, it has incentive travelers and company travelers and that is an important market.”
Wang added the Millennium Hilton has what it takes to lure international visitors.
“We have really unique selling points and they are our quality of service and location,” he said.
In particular, Wang strongly promotes the hotel's location against others in the central business district area.
“We are at the foot of Mount Nam, so we can enjoy the best mix of market segments,” he said.
According to Wang, leisure travelers' top choice is visiting shopping areas and staying somewhere very convenient to train stations. They also want a lot of attractions within walking distance.
“So we are near these kinds attractions compared with some hotels in the central business district or near City Hall,” he said.
The Millennium Hilton is the only hotel to offer a complimentary shuttle bus service from the hotel to the KTX train station on an hourly basis.
“Travelers from overseas want to visit the secondary city of Korea and they can easily take the KTX,” he added.