Aman looks for more 'junkies' for its hotels
Aman is to set to have 30 resorts by the end of 2015, which will be one of the most productive years in the company’s 27-year history.
But as well as opening three hotels this year, the group is keen to grow its client base beyond what have become known as “Amanjunkies”, its wealthy guests who stay very loyal to the remote and exclusive resorts around the world.
“We are very lucky to have 50% repeat guests levels, and now the children of the Amanjunkies are coming back to us too as adults,” said chief executive Olivier Jolivet. “But we are changing how we go to market now - we never really engaged in marketing before, as it was such a word of mouth idea for Aman and our guests, but now we have to put ourselves out there a little more.”
He also hinted of the formation of a new Aman “Club” where membership fees would allow non-guests to access the facilities of the resorts and hotels: “Obviously they would be carefully selected by a board who would advocate like-minded members.”
The company’s website is set to be relaunched in April and the group’s social media presence will also start to grow, Jolivet said. By the end of March, there will also be a new booking engine to make it easier for the trade to book Aman stays.
“Our regular guests literally just call the general managers and tell them they’re coming,” said Jolivet, “but now we need to create more wider-used and modern methods of booking! And we have to stay relevant.”
The company is building a sizeable office in London, where there is now a team of 16, as its resorts develop more outside of its Asia base.
“It makes more sense for us to have an office in this part of the world as we have more hotels in the west coming along now, and many of our key markets are also here,” said Jolivet.
As part of the growth in London, Christina Deeny has also been appointed group head of global sales, reporting into chief marketing officer Lisa Bovio, who is also new to the company and based in the London office.
Deeny is well known in the sector and joins directly from Belmond. She will be hosting one of the group’s first ever trade sales roadshows at the end of February, bringing over seven general managers to meet with key tour operators in London and the north-west.
New resorts for the group will debut this year in Playa Grande, Dominican Republic; Lijiang in China; and Shima in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, which will join the most recent opening, Aman Tokyo, one of the group’s few urban settings. It occupies six floors of the 38-storey Otemachi Tower in the city’s business district.
Jolivet said Japan is the third biggest guest market for the group - after the US and UK - and said Aman will open more hotels in Japan in coming years, including the project in Shima and a potential one in Kyoto.
“We will have 30 hotels by the end of the year, but it’s not part of some huge aggressive expansion strategy - we will still ensure each hotel is small and personal, but we have to keep growing where our guests want us to. We are keen to find hotels in South America and Africa for example,” he said.
A project in Portugal’s Alentejo region could soon join its other European hotels, such as Amanzoe in Greece, while a project scoping out five lodges in national parks in Gabon is still on the drawing board.
Jolivet added the group was also looking at several projects in Mozambique and said a project combining a tented camp in the Galapagos with a hotel in Ecuador’s Quito would also be desirable, as would projects in Mexico and Peru.
The Dominican Republic project will have 40 rooms and 40 residential villas set around a golf course in “one of the most beautiful locations in the Caribbean” and will complement the group’s other Caribbean resort, Amanyara in Turks & Caicos.
As well as it placing an office between Europe and the US, a bigger London base also makes sense for the new owner of Aman, Russian property billionaire Vladislav Doronin.
A self-confessed Amanjunkie, he was part of a consortium of investors who bought the group last year for £235 million, but controversy has followed the deal ever since, with ongoing lawsuits in London and New York.
Last year the High Court in London ruled on an interim basis that Doronin wasn’t validly appointed as CEO following the sale, although Doronin is fighting back.
Jolivet steers the company for now and is keen to point out it is “business as usual” as the group looks to its openings for the year and the enhanced marketing strategy.
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Place of registration: England and Wales.
Company number 08723341.
Registered address: 6th Floor, 2 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU
