Thailand's golden touch

Anantara Resort Golden Triangle Thailand general manager Mark Heather explains why the GCC could become the property's newest source market.

What are your key source markets?

The number one market is the UK and number two is the US. This is because Anantara has a big brand presence in the UK, while in America we get a lot of business through luxury sites such as Virtuoso and Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH).

How will the launches of the Anantara-managed Desert Islands Resort & Spa in Abu Dhabi and the Anantara spa at Kempinski Ishtar Dead Sea impact business?

There are a lot of Arabs visiting Bangkok, but I haven't really seen many expatriates from Dubai visiting Thailand - I have them from Hong Kong or Singapore.

But with Anantara increasing its presence in the region and an Anantara property set for Dubai in 2010, people will realise what Thai hospitality is and what our designs and concepts are and they'll be more likely to make visits over here.

The dots connect. For example, now we have people coming to the Golden Triangle who have visited Anantara in the Maldives.

What is your typical guest profile?

Our guests are luxury travellers looking for a real experience. If people come to the resort they can sit by the pool, but most people want to do things; they want a story to tell.

My guests are really engaged; they want to know about the history and the local people, where they should go and what they should see - they're not the flop-and-drop types.

Guests are mostly couples, but we're starting to get more children and the average length of stay is four nights to a week.
 

What are the property's USPs?

I think all of the activities that we offer are our USP. Overall, it's the experience, the location and the friendly people. There's an awful lot of guest contact here. I meet every single guest and I try to greet as many as possible - not just VIPs but every guest.

We also offer a VIP transfer including a long-tail boat and elephant ride, which is normally reserved for agents, journalists, Virtuoso members and SLH members etc. I'll do one or two pick-ups every day because I just like to do them - it doesn't cost us very much and it just blows the guest away.

What's the most popular activity?

Without a doubt, the mahout training with our elephants is the most popular excursion. I'd say that 30% of our guests do that.

All the guests go and see the elephants at the camp though. The hotel started with two elephants on site; the idea was to get them off the streets of Bangkok.Working closely with the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, we now have 30 elephants and rent them from the mahout, who comes up here to live with his family.

What emerging trends have you seen in luxury travel?

Luxury travellers want an experience. They want to go home and say 'wow, I was at the Golden Triangle and I learned to ride an elephant'. I'm also seeing two key growth areas. The first is direct bookings via the internet and the second is tailor-made travel, especially from the US. I'm sure others will follow.