Hello, and welcome to this special edition of Talking Property with CBRE. The Lobby Series is a collection of intimate talks with industry experts that uncover how we can maximise the human experience in the spaces we frequent every day. Each episode takes place in the lobby of some of Sydney's most iconic buildings and brings together our very own in-house experts with market leaders who are shaping our future cities. We hope you enjoy these insightful conversations.
SC:
I'm coming to you from the iconic Fullerton Hotel Sydney, right in the heart of Sydney's CBD. We're at GPO Martin Place and it's a real pleasure to catch up with Rob Weeden. Rob is General Manager of Fullerton Hotel in Sydney. He's got 30 years of experience in the hotel's industry. Rob, real pleasure having you here.
RW:
Thank you, Sameer. It's great to have you in my hotel.
SC:
Look, I might kick off just by saying, Rob, you know, if you think about business sort of pre-2020, what was the typical mix for the hotel? Was it mainly a business hotel? Did you have a lot of tourists?
RW:
The Fullerton started here in late 2019, so it was about 10 minutes before Covid started and hit us. But the hotel has been here for the last 20 years, but the general post office is about to celebrate 150 years. And our general post office was, it sent a message to the world that commerce was alive and thriving here in the colony of New South Wales. And we're about to celebrate our 150th birthday. So the team here at The Fullerton Hotel, and certainly our owners are investing a lot of time and effort and money into making sure that this hotel is truly one of the best hotels in Australia. As far as the business mix went, of course there are a lot more international travellers when we go back to pre-Covid. This is predominantly in the centre of the business hub of Australia here at Martin Place. So we are unashamedly a very big corporate hotel, but on the weekends we have a wonderful leisure mix as well. And of course there's big conferencing and events. So we're welcoming people every single day from all walks of life.
SC:
Well been like in more recent times. So last couple of months, have you seen a change in the mix of people coming to the hotels? Is there more domestic, less international, more business?
RW:
Well, since all the lockdowns finished, we're seeing a lot more people from interstate. But look, I think the accessibility of travel outside of Australia has seen a lot of people rediscovering Australia. So we've got a lot more people coming across from Western Australia to come to Sydney, whereas, you know, as a holiday destination, it might have been once in a generation kind of holiday. Now people are coming over more frequently and they're discovering all the wonderful things that Sydney has. We're starting to see that corporate business gradually starting to move out of Victoria.
SC:
Doesn't like the mix of traveller actually change their economics for an operator? Does it matter whether you have a lot of business or if you can fill the rooms with tourists? Is it a important factor or not?
RW:
I mean, it's a fine balance. You want to ensure that your business mix does have a nice cross section of markets because not only are you protecting the future of your business, it's a sustainable flow. So the leisure traveller will spend two, three days in Sydney, whereas the corporate traveller might be one or two days in Sydney; the corporate traveller comes with one person, whereas the family, it might be mum, dad, two kids, no dogs, but you know, there's four breakfasts as opposed to one breakfast. So the incremental spend is there. And of course when they go on adventures around Sydney, there's all the restaurants and the bars and all the different attractions that we have here. The more leisure business, everybody wins. But corporate business is incredibly important too.
SC:
If you were to, you know, cast your eyes next three years, five years out, how do you see sort of the hotel industry and your business in particular in the CBD sort of thing, changing?
RW:
Look, I think there's a lot of things that are changing right now. I mean, we're only just starting to see international travellers come through. We've had many, many professionals in our industry that have unfortunately left hospitality. They've gone to other careers. You think of a room attendant. You know, they're incredibly skilled people and doing an incredibly hard job. But as we were locked down, many of them may have gone to aged care. So we are welcoming all these wonderful new people into our industry. So there's a lot of training taking place. We haven't had the international students coming through, so that means we've got homegrown kids that are really learning our trade, but we we're also bringing in people from different industries, different age groups. So typically it is a young person's game, but you know, we've got people that have had other jobs and they may have been semi-retired. They're now coming into work three or four days a week, which is great.
SC:
And you know, earlier today I was at the conference facility downstairs in your hotel. How do you see, you know, conferences changing? Do you see large format conferences still having a place? I was in one of those, but do you see any changes in the conference business?
RW:
Look, I see the change being people are sick of doing Zoom calls. People are sick of teams meetings. You know, for the last two years we've had the conferences where people would be dialling in. But when you're dialling in, you're not engaged, you're not there, you're not able to network.
SC:
The conversation's not happening.
RW:
Yes. So we've got the biggest pillarless ballroom in Sydney which takes a thousand people. And you can just see that people are, they want to be out of home. They want to be striking deals and making friends and catching up and talking about creating opportunities. So I see there's this real motivation towards, you know, maybe shorter conferences. But there's this real motivation to get out there and meet.
SC:
And connect. And Rob, one of the interesting features, I think with what's happened with 2020 and 2021 is this big focus on sustainability. How do you see sustainability sort of playing a role in your guests or in your in room facilities or in dining? Has there been any changes that you think come out of sustainability?
RW:
In our industry, we're actually in a great position to look at sustainability and how it affects our business. Our customers are arriving and there's not so much a demand that you do this. It's more of an expectation now. So when you look at the basic things of say the kitchen, not all eggs are free range eggs. They're not coming from battery farms and so forth. That's not so much something you talk about, but it's just something that's accepted. It is done. For us here at The Fullerton Hotel Sydney, we look at our wine lists. You can see all around Sydney. There is nowhere near enough wines coming out of the Hunter Valley. So supporting our local growers, our farmers, our producers, is super important. If we are bringing in beef from Western Australia or beef from Queensland, we really should be supporting our local farmers. So as much as possible, we are trying to grab or to source and procure different products. And with rampant inflation too, you're really looking for those great deals. As far as our seafood goes, it's from the Australian catch, nothing is being imported. So we are trying to keep that footprint as low as we can. And of course, I don't think there's an Australian or an Australian business that's not trying to save electricity at the moment either.
SC:
Actually, it brings me to my last and sort of tough question. Utility costs are going up, wages are going up. It's tough. As a business operator, what are you doing to sort of keep a lid on costs? What can you do as an operator?
RW:
You do want to...any business, you need to control your costs in such a way that you're not impacting on the quality of your product. The services that you are delivering and the expectations that you're trying to meet. Value is actually quite subjective. So some people's value is financial, some people's value is experience. And you know, if you're a leisure guest, some people have saved for months to come and stay here for a weekend and they want a fantastic experience. Whereas the business traveller's expectation is that check in, check out as seamless as possible, and let's move. So that whole value proposition, it does shift with the archetype of the guest that you are welcoming.
SC:
Look, and Rob, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to me. Very helpful. Thank you.
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