I love to travel.

As a traveller, I saw the Receptionist, the Bellman and the Housekeeping Attendant. How did my booking from Wotif.com get to the Receptionist? How did the Bellman remember my name? Why did the Housekeeping Attendant drop me a written message if I do not ask for my room to be cleaned for 2 consecutive days? What went on behind these people whom I see?

I was curious. I wanted to find out more. Hence, I began my journey into the world of hotels.

I started as part of the pre-opening Marcom team in a new property. It was stressful. It was tiring. It was exhilarating. There were 101 things to be done now.

From meeting the media to changing your lingo to speak to the travel agent (yes, you have to do that!), there was and still is no lack of things to learn and try.

You discover trends you have never considered before. When the economy is down, you can almost immediately see the impact on travel.

What should you do to increase demand? How to get people to stay with you when fewer people are travelling? When technology changes, the hospitality industry evolves.

Less than a decade ago, if someone asked you to book a hotel online, you would look at them strange and head for the nearest travel agency. Today, people research and book holidays online. With Internet being more accessible to the world, I knew that is the way hotels should go and I wanted to be part of it.

I joined Royal Plaza on Scotts 2 years ago as a Business Development Manager in the Revenue department, having heard much about its innovativeness in the online world. I was easily bored. I wanted to test out ideas. I wanted to experiment. I wanted a dynamic working environment.

Royal Plaza on Scotts proved to be that incubator I was looking for. At work, we bounce off ideas as a team. We try things and measure them to death.

When social media started to play an increasingly important role in hotels, we pushed our social media strategy. I love telling people that I am paid to be on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Sounds cool eh?

When guests started engaging with us on the different social media channels, we knew we were going in the right direction. We celebrated the arrival of the first guest who booked with us via Twitter, we rejoiced when the first compliment appeared on Facebook.   

Having been in the hotel industry through the ups and downs, I am, still loving the challenges it throws at me. When times are hard, you think hard with your team and push yourself to innovate. When times are good, you work hard with your team to make it even better.

Being the Assistant Director in eCommerce, I love exploring new channels for the next ‘what if’. We did a celebratory dance when we sold the first deal on Groupon. We pat our own backs when statistics showed huge improvements on pertinent variables following our website revamp.

If you want vibrancy, if you crave excitement, if you thrive on challenges, have no doubt that the hospitality industry can offer you all these and more. No wonder several seniors have told me that they started in the industry, left it for a while, and still came back in the end.

Do not worry about not having the right qualifications. As the cliché goes, it’s all about the attitude. My education was in Communications but that did not stop me from loving the hotel industry. Find a good mentor. Work for the company that believes in developing talents and sending you to relevant courses. In no time at all, you will live, breathe, eat and sleep hotels.  

Be warned! You will examine hotel compendium during your holidays, test hotel services on your vacations, be a difficult guest on your overseas sales trip. All in the name of ‘product testing’ and searching for the next “big idea”. Enjoy your next trip. I know I will, as I learn more about other hotels. Immensely.

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