Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas continues guest outreach programme

Source: Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas.

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas has reached out to guests, followers and friends since end-March 2020 with a daily dose of live chats, cooking, meditation and yoga classes.

The company acknowledged that not everyone is ready to travel even with COVID-19 lockdowns easing, and has unveiled the next six chapters to its #AtHomeWithSixSenses story in response.

The #AtHomeWithSixSenses content will continue at sixsenses.com and @SixSensesHotelsResortsSpas (Facebook and Instagram) and @SixSensesSpas (Facebook and Instagram) to educate, entertain and provide an escape, the company said.

The six new chapters comprise Wellness, Eat, Grow, Sustainability, Sleep and From the Heart of Six Senses. 

The current weekly talks hosted by Six Senses Wellness Pioneer Anna Bjurstam will continue to take place every Tuesday with experts from around the world sharing insights and tools.

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas announces TripAdvisor accolades for three properties in Vietnam

Source: Six Senses Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas. The master bedroom of an oceanfront three-bedroom villa at Six Senses Con Dao, Vietnam. 

The world’s largest travel site TripAdvisor* has announced its top properties for the 14th year, based on millions of reviews and opinions collected in a single year from travellers around the globe. Evason Ana Mandara, Six Senses Ninh Van Bay and Six Senses Con Dao have each received the Traveller’s Choice award, the highest honour given by TripAdvisor. 

Evason Ana Mandara and Six Senses Ninh Van Bay are recognised within the Top Hotels of Vietnam, and Six Senses Con Dao joins under the category of Luxury. Both Evason Ana Mandara and Six Senses Ninh Van Bay renewed the title from the last two years. Recognised previously with the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence, this is the first year that Six Senses Con Dao has broken into the top 1% of peer reviews on the website.

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas President Bernhard Bohnenberger comments on the recognition, “Approximately 80% of travellers will consult peer reviews prior to finally deciding where to stay during their holiday. Recognition from websites such as TripAdvisor carries with it an immense amount of weight because it is based on genuine feedback from our guests. Our three very special resorts in Vietnam are no stranger to this, as we have been redefining experiences there for nearly two decades. We are exceptionally proud of the in-roads made and look forward to continuing in the years to come.”

TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 350 million unique monthly visitors**, and more than 290 million reviews and opinions covering 5.3 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions.

* ComScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, July 2015

** TripAdvisor log files, average monthly unique users, Q315

Finetune marketing strategies with native mobile strategies for Asia-Pacific

The right marketing strategy can help technology companies engage buyers earlier and more effectively, says Sinead Woodley, Managing Director UK, April Six, a digital marketing agency.

"Technology has changed the possible. Use it to your advantage," she said, speaking in Singapore at the official launch of April Six in Asia Pacific.

She described EMEA-wide campaigns for VMware, "marketing to people who don't want to be marketed to", or IT practitioners. April Six consistently surpassed the pipeline targets given, delivering better than 1:20 ROI (1 US dollar invested resulting in 20 dollars of revenue) each year, she shared, despite the stakes being raised higher in years two and three.

Some of the success factors for the VMware campaigns, Woodley said, included using a blended inbound and outbound strategy*, a single go-to-market strategy based on a year even though budgets arrived quarterly, aligning the approach to the buyer journey, and marketing automation.

Brad Harris, Managing Director APAC, April Six, said that April Six plans to bring similar campaigns to the Asia Pacific region, localised for the audience. He explained that April Six will work with Splash Interactive and DWA to deliver on campaigns in the region. He also shared that the company plans to move into Shanghai in 2016, and to Jakarta and Bangalore in 2017.

Aryeh Sternberg, APAC Head of Intent Marketing, DWA, a marketing agency, shared a list of marketing tips during the event:

No. 10 was "know your audience", as the more you know, the more you can engage them, while No. 8 was the related "look" to really see what the target audience is doing. No. 5 was also related, being about content that fits the individual, rather than assuming "one size fits all". No. 2 boiled down to relevance, also related, while in No. 1 was meaning and value. "You need to deliver something that people want. Remember, it is not about you, it is about your audience," he stressed.

He also shared ways to improve marketing strategies:

Extend rich content
Sternberg noted that many companies stop creating a single piece of content without thinking of repurposing it. A webinar, for example, can be turned into a podcast, while the transcribed text can be shared on social media.



Consider more channels
Sternberg shared that for one campaign it was found that the target audience read four magazines in different verticals. The key is to contact them when and where they prefer.

Dynamic messaging
A given audience is not homogeneous, so messaging has to change depending on who it is directed at.

Support mobility, and video
Mobile web and app platforms are still underutilised, he said, while video is popular.

Use data in new ways
There is technology today that shows which part of an advertisement a person looks at most, for example.



Kuok Ming, CEO, Splash Interactive, a digital marketing agency, echoed Sternberg in saying that mobility and video are important in the "mobile-first" Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Nine of the top 25 most mobile countries are in this region, with 600 million in China alone. Quoting eMarketer figures, he said Indonesia will have 69.4 million smartphone users by 2017, while Japan will already have 61.2 million smartphone users by 2016.

"User behaviour, expectations and access to the Internet are governed by attributes of smartphones and mobile data services," he said.

Kuok also showed a screen capture of a ZTE phone with 4GB of RAM on sale on local e-commerce site Lazada for just S$60 to prove how low prices can go today."The cost of entry is going down," he explained.

Kuok said the logical conclusion is to go for mobile engagements, agreeing with Sternberg. "Mobile video is the next big thing," he said, urging the audience to consider "mobile-first" customers when 84 million of the 100 million Facebook users in India use mobile to access Facebook, and over 60% of the purchases made on China's Taobao and Tmall were from mobile. "E-commerce is going mobile."

Another tip, Kuok said, is to add WeChat to a marketing strategy. The app has 570 million active users daily. "Official accounts are an unobtrusive way to engage," he said.

Pitfalls, Kuok said, include thinking "desktop-first", assuming the desktop work can be tweaked for mobile later. Such strategies completely bypass unique features of mobile, including location-based services and face recognition from the phone camera. "A mobile version is not mobile-first," he emphasised. "Mobile friendly is not native."

Interested?

Read about VMware and April Six

*Outbound marketing refers to traditional marketing channels such as broadcast, print publications, direct mail, out of home advertising, and event sponsorships. Digital forms of these channels such as email blasts, banner ads, and pay-per-click ads are also considered outbound. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, provides content about a company through blogs, podcasts, a corporate video channel, e-books, e-newsletters, whitepapers, and search engine optimisation. SEO, physical products, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract customers through the different stages of the purchase funnel.

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas invests in reaching out to Chinese travellers

Source: Six Senses Hotel Resorts Spas' Chinese website.

Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas continues to evolve its online presence with the launch of a website in Chinese. The new site mirrors the content and functionality found on the brand’s English language site. The Chinese site is expected to drive additional business from one of Six Senses’ most important growing markets.

Additional efforts to reach Chinese customers include new brand-level interaction on the social media platforms WeChat, Youku and Sina Weibo. The newest Six Senses resort located outside of Chengdu, Six Senses Qing Cheng Mountain, already maintains a presence on these social channels in China.

“The launch of the new language sites and social media platforms in China will better harness the power of Six Senses online testimonials and communications by increasing our global community of fans and followers. Success will also be measured by SEO (search engine optimisation), Google rankings and organic search," said Julia Gajcak, VP, marketing and communications, Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas.

Interested?

Visit the Chinese site

Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Arabic minisites are expected to complement the Japanese minisite by the end of the year.

Six-port USB desktop charger takes care of charging headaches

Poweradd, which produces mobile device accessories, has released a 50W six-port desktop USB charger to address the need to charge multiple devices with a limited number of power outlets.

The device measures 4" x 2.9" x 1", and accommodates 100V to 240V voltages for international use. Two ports provide 2.4A, two handle 2.1A and the remaining two give a 1A charge. 

A built-in circuit protection system shuts off the charger automatically in the event of overvoltage, overcurrent, overheating or short circuits. The charger is made of industrial-grade fireproof materials for added protection. 

More details on the product can be viewed at Amazon here, or visit the Poweradd website. 

EIU identifies six areas of growth for Asia

The Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU's) "industry dynamism" barometer, commissioned by InvestKL, Greater Kuala Lumpur's investment promotion agency, has seen a bright future for six industry sectors across Asia: engineering services, environmental technology, food processing, healthcare, oil & gas, and wholesale & retail. 

The findings indicate that continued corporate investment in Asia will support longer-term opportunities. Speaking at the launch of six reports under the barometer umbrella, Zainal Amanshah, CEO of InvestKL, said that the findings "reinforce the importance of Asian cities as drivers of the region's growth." 

The six sectors are:

Engineering Services 

Rapid economic growth has translated into engineering opportunities for US$8 to US$9 trillion of new infrastructure needed between 2010 and 2020. Asia's engineering companies are growing at breakneck speed as they capitalise on these opportunities. Between 2005 and 2011, the approximately 120 engineering companies listed on the region's stock exchanges grew top-line revenues by an average of 20% every year. 

"Remarkable rates of economic growth make Asia the part of the world for engineering services firms, with this region accounting for 36.6% of global GDP in 2013, up from 26.8% in 2001," said Amanshah of the findings in this sector, which is also a key economic area identified by the Malaysian government.

Environmental Technology  

Policy support for renewable energy in Europe may have fallen, but is strong in Asia. Asia is experiencing record levels of cleantech investment – across the six years of this study, value of fixed assets per company increased by an average of 9% every year. The combined revenues of Asia's cleantech firms more than doubled from 2005 to 2011, while growth rates were at nearly 13% a year for the same period.

"The huge wave of urbanisation sweeping Asia requires a lot more investment in ensuring our urban environments and infrastructure are more efficient," Amanshah noted. "The opportunities for companies that can provide sustainable solutions limiting the environmental impact of our rising population are significant - to put them into context, this region already emits more carbon dioxide than the US, EU and Russian Federation combined."

Food Processing 

Rapid urbanisation is changing food consumption patterns, and creating opportunities for more efficient distribution, including upstream into rural supply chains. Asia's food companies are thriving as they leverage these opportunities. Between 2005 and 2011, the 400 or so food companies listed on the region's stock exchanges grew top-line revenues by an average of 23% every year.

However, companies will need to invest in innovation in order to tailor their products to the diverse local taste preferences across the region – global brands will have to localise their products, while Asia will be a source of new home-grown food ideas (such as the halal-certified food market). 

"We already account for more than half of the world's population. By 2040, we will add another 800 million people to our count – all of whom are rapidly getting richer," said the CEO of InvestKL. "Asia's spending on food is forecast to double between 2007 and 2050 in real terms – representing three quarters of the global increase over the same period."
 
Healthcare

In the hospital sector, Asia will need an additional 180 million new hospital beds in the next decade. In pharmaceuticals, Asia's market will grow more than 13% annually – from US$214.2 billion in 2010 to US$386bn by 2016.
 
In 2007, Asia and Oceania together accounted for 18.1% of global biomedical research. By 2012, that share had grown to 23.8%. Between 2005 and 2011, revenues at Asia's listed healthcare fims rose by almost 23% a year. Profits rose even more swiftly, by 31% a year.
 
Challenges on the horizon include competition that is intensifying as the number of firms entering the sector grows. Costs, especially labour-related, are rising rapidly. And regulations are getting much more stringent as a growing middle class demands greater safety, security and consumer protection. 

With populations and incomes rising, Amanshah noted that "health spending is growing even faster – Asia's share of world health spending is expected to rise from 21% in 2012 to 24% by 2017. Although parts of our region's population are still in need of basic healthcare services, more and more are beginning to require treatment for 'diseases of the affluent'." 

Oil & Gas

"ExxonMobil expects a significant rise in Asia's share of global energy consumption, from 38% in 2010 to 45% by 2040," said Amanshah. "Meeting this rising demand for oil and gas in this region will be challenging, even though some countries are net energy exporters (such as Malaysia and Brunei)."
 
Growth in the demand for gas will outstrip all other fuels, given its cleaner environmental characteristics and superior flexibility.
 
Most countries import more than they produce. BP calculates that Asia produced 8.3 million barrels of oil a day in 2012, or 9.6% of global production, but consumed 29.8 million barrels of oil a day, 33.5% of global consumption. 

Despite being a net energy importer, the Asia Pacific region still has plenty of potential for upstream development. The biggest opportunities exist in new gas fields, such as in Myanmar and Papua New Guinea. In order to extract gas from Asia's more complicated fields, regional oil and gas companies are investing more heavily in new technologies. In 2011, Asia's 50 listed oil & gas firms spent US$2.13 billion on R&D, up from US$368 million in 2004.

Given the landscape of opportunity in Asia, the region's listed oil and gas companies are reporting strong revenue growth. In 2004, revenue per company in the sector stood at US$2.9 billion. By 2011 that had grown to US$10.2 billion, an average annual growth rate of 20%.
 
But while growth is rapid, the industry also faces challenges in the form of increased competition and costs, and talent shortages. These issues contributed to the return on capital employed for Asia's listed oil and gas sector falling from 19% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2011.

Wholesale and Retail

"The population of Asia is predicted to be 4.6 billion by 2040, with average consumer wealth rising in tandem," said Amanshah. "To put the impact of this population increase in perspective, in 2001 Asia accounted for 26.8% of global GDP measured using purchasing power parity – by 2013, our share had risen to 36.6%. Significant urbanisation and penetration of modern retail formats are driving sales."
 
Asia's homegrown retail companies are growing. Between 2005 and 2011, revenues at Asia's listed retail and wholesale firms rose by an average of 21% every year. Most of this growth was organic in character. Between 2013 and 2018, the EIU forecasts that retail sales in Asia Pacific will grow by 10.2% every year, whereas globally retail sales will grow by only 6.9% a year. In 2013, Asia had 80m square meters of modern retail space, but this will rise to 135m square meters by 2018. 


Retail opportunities are highly varied, from mass market grocery chains and fast-food outlets to high-end fashion stores and luxury boutiques. The opportunities for online retail look especially good, with growth rates of close to 17% a year.  

While topline growth is exciting, a number of structural issues are making profits growth harder to achieve. Human capital with retail skills is in short supply, forcing companies to invest heavily in training. Wages are rising, with staff costs up from 3.5% of operating revenues in 2005 to 5% by 2011.

Further reinforcing the eastward shift of power is a study by McKinsey & Co quoted by the EIU in the reports, which notes that 420 cities in emerging markets (more than half of which are in Asia) are expected to contribute 45% of global GDP growth between 2010 and 2015. The report further notes that Southeast Asia will have many significant economic engines of its own, with urban population growth and productivity improvements rising faster than in rural areas, driving incomes up at a much faster pace. This combination of faster population growth and faster income growth led the EIU to conclude that it "makes cities the dynamos of the future".

The six papers, covering engineering services, environmental technology, food processing, healthcare, oil & gas, and wholesale & retail sectors, can be found here.