For InterContinental Hotels Group, with humanization for its soul, the core mission is not to double the size in Greater China, but in realizing humanization among employees, guests, society and environment, towards the ultimate goal: to create “Great Hotels, Guests Love”.

　　——Exclusive Interview with Jolyon Bulley, Chief Operation Officer of IHG Greater China

　　Jolyon Bulley, Chief Operation Officer of IHG Greater China

　　(Meadin.com / Irene) In 1984, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) entered China as the first international hotel. Today IHG boasts over 200 hotels in operation, and nearly 180 in pipeline. It is the biggest international hotels group in Greater China. Jolyon Bulley, COO of IHG Greater China said: “We are going to double the size over the next three years.”

　　However, “double the size” doesn’t mean to increase the number of hotels, but also realize “humanization” among employees, guests, society and environment, thus building great hotels that withstand against time.

　　Humanized management—“Best Offer From Hometown” programme

　　Once IHG had lots of hotels in tier-one cities, the group attracted talents from tier-two or three cities. Now, IHG just turns the other way around—attract those people working in tier-one cities back to home. This is the first step of “humanization” in 2014 —“Best Offer From Hometown”.

　　“When I was in Xi’an last year, we met a lot of people who were very experienced working in our hotels at management level. Most of them had not started their career in Xi’an. They worked in Shanghai, Beijing or Guangdong province. As we opened our hotels in Xi’an, a lot of people applied to work at their hometown. That led us to the whole concept of ‘hometown strategy’.” Jolyon said.

　　IHG posts all the management positions online, so that the employees have access to that. And the group really heavily promotes this whole commitment to IHG by being with their family and coming home. So it’s good for the employees, their family and the hotels.

　　When asked what brings the concept of “hometown strategy”, Kathryn Wang, Public Relations Manager of Global Communication, IHG Greater China, said: “As more and more hotels are opened in China, we’ve got problems, especially in tier-two or three cities. You know, most of the talents have gone to tier-one cities, so it’s hard for us to find experienced talents. Actually, these people also want to go home, but they cannot get a favorable salary like in tier-one cities. So we help to offer some jobs in their hometowns and they can come home with a successful way.”

　　“Of course this project is based on the great numbers of hotels we opened in China, so they have opportunities to go home. Many of their parents are in old age and they really need the company of their children. In addition, the employees going home with rich work experience are able to earn same salary as in tier-one or two cities but also make another breakthrough in new positions.”

　　Humanized Service—“Project Dragon”

　　As more and more Chinese people travel outbound, Chinese-style service also becomes a hot topic in hospitality industry. A bowl of hot soya-bean milk, TV with Chinese subtitles, a bite of rice, but these services are not a patch on a Chinese service.

　　IHG has an outbound China strategy called “Project Dragon”, which offer more considerate service for outbound Chinese travelers, even Mandarin-speaking service.

　　“We select high potential employees from China to work oversees for six months to help that hotel understand the Chinese customer. Also the employees can get experience with IHG internationally. ” Jolyon said. “We are just sending our first person to New Zealand and we’ll send six or seven more this year.”

　　Humanized Charity—IHG Hope Fund

　　In 2007, IHGestablished “IHG Hope Fund”, by which the group raises money for needy children in the poverty areas. IHG raises the fund through the hotels by doing charitable activities which people can participate in and its guests can also contribute to that project. In the last 6 years, IHG has raised over 23 million yuan and built 28 wonderful schools.

　　IHG has also set up hotel service courses at vocational schools in 9 cities and offered scholarships for some needy undergraduates in IHG Academy.

　　IHG also has a program called “Green Engage”, which all the hotels of IHG have participated in. That is about trying to be the best in sustainable development from design, construction and operation of hotels. This program conserves energy and carbon footprint, which is a good thing for China and China’s environment. When you choose a hotel which has participated in “Green Engage”, you will help to reduce as much as 25% of energy consumption.

　　Postscript: A visionary company will infuse its core value and core mission into the operations in every different country. In the face of different culture in different countries, great companies never give up their core value and behavior standard. It is not only important for IHG, but also all the international hotel groups to into China.

　　The following is a part of the interview transcript:

　　1. Development

　　Meadin: Some industry veterans said that, over the next five years, if there some big events are going to happen that must be happened in the mid-range hotels market. So what is IHG going to do take the opportunity in the mid-range hotels market?

　　Jolyon Bulley: We’ve seen change. You know the “austerity measures” implemented by the central government. We think that’s a good thing and we support it. Of course it has challenged the industry over the last year or two. But we’ve been very quick to understand that we also need to change and to look into new business opportunities. During the adjustment period, we’ve seen that our mid-range brand—Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express really pick up, so we have laid our emphasis on mid-range hotels. And compared the Q1 results with the same period last year, we’ve seen a growth.

　　Meadin: We know that many HUALUXE are in the pipeline, and how is it going now?

　　Jolyon Bulley: We’ll open our first HUALUXE late this year in Yangjiang. And we’ll open another three or four HUALUXE in 2015. It is the first international upscale hotel brand designed specifically for Chinese guests, and we hope to bring this wonderful brand to life.

　　2. Operation

　　Meadin: IHG always takes great effort to understand the preference of the guests. And you have a professional team doing the researches. So according to your researches, in the future 3 to 5 years, what kind of places do the consumers would like to visit?

　　Jolyon Bulley: Recently we launched an 2014 IHG trends report. One big trend is the emergence of leisure travel both domestically and internationally. In the past, we see a lot of business travelers, but now it’s different. With more and more Chinese travelers are becoming affluent, they want to seek more leisure experience.

　　And we also see the emergence of the importance of leisure travel for and with the family. So we really look at these destinations that our travelers aspire to and what they are seeking in their experience there. And really take it into consideration the importance of family experience.

　　Just give you an example. We see Yunnan province, which is geographically, naturally beautiful part of China. It got a lot of history there and minority culture. We currently have 5 hotels in Yunnan and 8 hotels to be developed there. That ranges from Sipsongpanna, Lijiang, Kunming, Dali and Shangri-La, which are Iconic locations in China.

　　It is same in Chengdu Sichuan province, the center of West in China. It is not only the big business destination but also the big leisure destination. In April, we opened InterContinental Chengdu Global Center, which is the second largest InterContinental with 900 rooms. New Century Global Center is a multipurpose building, which houses officers, two commercial centers and hotels with the largest indoor artificial beach in the centerpiece. And outbound tourism cannot be underestimated as well.

　　Meadin: IHG Greater China achieved a 3% revenue growth and 1% operating profit increase last year. It’s quite a favorable number under china’s “austerity measures”. So, what measure did you take to tackle the low growth period in hospitality industry?

　　Jolyon Bulley: We recognize there are changes coming. Instead of waiting things to go back to normal, we adjusted correspondingly. We also recognized that leisure travel is becoming more and more popular. So we really invest heavily on the leisure sector. That becomes the key driver for our revenue growth.

　　3. Innovation

　　Meadin: Crowne Plaza launched a mobile phone check-in service last year, how is it going now?

　　Jolyon Bulley: We are still in the testing phase. We launched it internationally. But it’s not fully deployed in China. We’ve heard from our colleagues in Crowne Plaza from around the world, this is becoming a popular service. You know, people can check-in from an airline, a train or a high speed train but also purchasing and servicing. They can do so much with the mobile technology. It’s pretty exciting.

　　Meadin: You know time changes. Now there are lots of new generation travelers. Some of them don’t like to contact with hotel employees, some of them like adventure, some like romantic café and so on. So is there any new technology or new experience for the personalized tourist market?

　　Jolyon Bulley: Mobile technology is a way of future and most of our transactions happen through mobile technology. So we have to understand our customers’ need state—what do they need and expect from our hotels and brands. And we also need to understand the generation Y customers. So, mobile technology is really important.

　　We are the first international hotel group have reservation available through Taobao, and first to use WeChat service account as a communication and platform. In my career, I’ve never seen technology moves so quickly and I think it’s much more quickly in China.

　　For new experience, Indigo hotel is worth to be mentioned. It is a boutique hotel. And now we have 5 in China. I think the new generation will be fond of its personalized service.

　　Meadin: Do all the hotels of IHG offer a free Wi-Fi, or only for members?

　　Jolyon Bulley: We’ve just introduced free Wi-Fi globally for IHG Rewards Club members. It’s not easy. We have more than 5 million members in Greater China. They will have access when they check in the hotel, stay in the hotel or even just visit the hotel in the public place to use the free Wi-Fi. You can become an IHG Rewards Club member online instantly or you can do that in our hotel.