Hotels Offer Business-Friendly Services
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
Many local hotels have seen a decrease in room occupancy rates and now seek a niche market to make up for the loss.
The decrease in the number of guests at hotels is largely attributed to the reduction of international travelers to resorts and tourist attractions here.
But as the nation attracts businessmen from all around the world, hotels also start to see them as emerging target customers and try to come up with new services to attract them.
``We keep losing traveling guests coming here due to the strong performance of the won as well as many newly-opened hotels,'' Daniel Eo, director of sales at the InterContinental Hotel, said. ``But there seems to be an increasing number of businessmen, who seek better services at hotels.''
The solution is to attract international businessmen by offering them what they want _ various meeting rooms, facilities, services and devices to help facilitate their business, he said.
The hotel has large-scale convention halls and big conference rooms as most other big hotels, but now it also offers more private places where a small group of businessmen or individual guests can hold small meetings.
Such places are equipped with basic devices for presentation, small group discussion tables and Internet connections. The hotel also offers customized secretarial services.
The hotel can also transform a connecting room into a small office so that guests can stay in a room and utilize another room as an office.
One of the hotel's special packages allows a small group of guests to use a conference room for free, with a selection of set menus available.
The efforts in attracting businessmen are even fiercer at some other hotels, which has resulted in some interesting strategies.
W Seoul-Walkerhill has recently launched ``Great Room'' meeting rooms for small groups of businessmen.
But what is interesting about the meeting room aside from the usual discussion tables and presentation devices are the programs to help tired and stressed businessmen.
``Business trips tent to be short but involve people dealing with a lot of things on a tight schedule,'' Joshua Rhie, CS manager at W Seoul-Walkerhill, said. ``Our business meeting rooms aim to help them deal with physical and mental stress and fatigue.''
Under the title of ``Sensory Setup,'' guests in a meeting room are allowed to have special devices such as a ``Stress Ball'' and ``Icon Roulette,'' which Rhie believes helps reduce the stress of a boring or formal meeting.
A special program called ``Recess'' offers guests a chance to relax during a break time with a short massage or spa treatment from the hotel's staff.
For those who plan a workshop in the city, the ``Wish Workshop'' program allows colleagues from a company to use the hotel's spa together to have more intimate gatherings.
``You suffer from new environments, time differences and tight schedules on your business trip, and we are trying to deal with them in an easy way, so you can have better outcome during your stay,'' he said.
