Is the hotel industry a mobile labor market?
I don’t think the Japan labor market is as mobile as other markets in the world, for example China, Thailand or Indonesia. In Tokyo, you’ve seen a lot of movement in the past two or three years because of the number of new additions to the luxury hotel market. But overall, the Japanese turnover is a lot lower. What is your definition of a good hotelier? A good hotelier should always be transparent with both guests and employees. Operating a hotel is like operating an orchestra where there are so many different components. When one component fails, the whole orchestra fails. As a hotelier, I have to teach each employee that their individual roles are very important to the overall customer experience. My job is to keep every department motoring along to provide a memorable customer experience for all our guests. What is a typical day for you? As you can imagine, I have to move around a lot. I live 10 minutes’ drive from the hotel and have been working seven days a week during the lead-up
