Pan Pacific Stretches its Borders

The hotel group plans to expand its brands beyond the Pacific Rim.

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. May 16, 2011

May 13, 2011 - Five years after the Pan Pacific hotel in San Francisco became a JW Marriott, the brand has plan to return to the city and others in North America as part of a strategic growth plan that will take the brand beyond its traditional Pacific Rim borders.

The brand's North American footprint now consists of four hotels - Seattle, Vancouver, and two in Whistler - and the goal is to open at least one hotel in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, according to Todd Wynne-Parry, vice president of development for North America with the Pan Pacific Hotel Group.

“Those properties need to benefit from further distribution and further brand recognition,” he said.

The target is to open “four-star plus” hotels with at least 200 rooms and position them to compete against Sofitel, Grand Hyatt, JW Marriott, InterContinental and Westin.

Wynne-Parry, who met with Hotel Interactive just after finishing a site tour in New York, said he hopes to have secured a property in at least one of the major North American markets in the next six to 12 months. The company would prefer to manage, he said, but he noted that it still owns half of the hotels that it operates.

Buying property these days, though, is difficult because the “markets are flush with cash,” Wynne-Parry said. In fact, the company recently lost an opportunity because the price became too high. “As product comes online, it's selling,” he said. “The pricing is very good from the seller's perspective.”

Singapore-based Pan Pacific Hotel Group owns, manages and/or markets over 30 hotels, resorts and serviced suites with more than 10,000 rooms. The company is poised to grow its two brands - the upper upscale Pan Pacific and lifestyle Pan Royal - throughout Asia with an emphasis on China. The company has no plans to bring ParkRoyal to North America, Wynne-Parry said. The brand, positioned below Pan Pacific, would face too much competition.

“That product segment in North America is massive,” he said. “There's an intense level of competition within that price point and product. The way to win in that category is distribution. We're putting our focus on Pan Pacific rather than trying to become the next Holiday Inn. It comes down to priorities, and it's about helping those properties already here.”

Part of Pan Pacific's strategic plan included reinforcing its the brand message by refreshing the logo, collateral, uniforms and design guidelines. The refresh was an 18-month process; Pan Pacific worked with Interbrand, a global consultancy, for the research.

“The brand work that we did tried to encapsulate the brand message: the Pan Pacific Touch,” he said. “Wherever the Pacific touches, we want to grab cultural and physical elements of that place and bring that into the brand. through service and physical product. It's about blending the various fabrics of the culture into the brand. An understated, quieter but effective service experience is something you should experience around the Pacific Rim. It's different from the European experience or an East Coast experience.”

The research helped reveal that the global hotel market does have a niche that Pan Pacific can fill, Wynne-Parry said. He described it as “a subtle but attentive Asian style of service.”

“When we looked at other brands we found no one owned that space,” he said. “No one owns the whole of the Rim. That's been the nexus of our brand. It's in our name.”

The company's research showed that brand awareness is strong in Northern California, but low on the East Coast. Opening hotels in Chicago and New York will help build brand familiarity and help with distribution. It also will give guests coming from Asia and the Pacific Northwest a familiar option when they travel east.

Pan Pacific also used the brand research to hone its message and culture.

“The brand needed to enhance its level of consistency,” Wynne-Parry said. “It's getting all properties to have the same look and feel. All good brands have an evolution. The message might change but the promise and service do not.”

Kini Parente, director of sales and marketing for the Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle, said the company will benefit from having more properties.

“They're building the foundation for growth in our company,” she said.

The Seattle property, a 160-key hotel with condos on the top five floors, opened in 2006 at the gateway to the South Lake Union and the downtown financial district. It's transitioning into biotech neighborhood with the Gates Foundation headquarters nearby and Amazon's new headquarters being built two blocks away. But the trendy neighborhood also features women's boutiques, a pet-friendly bakery and one of the city's top seafood restaurants, Seastar, which provides fare for the hotel's banquets, room service and lobby bar.

Parente said the neighborhood has had an influx of 5,000 new residents since 2003. Part of the hotel's strategy is to make them feel welcome by hosting events such for locals as the weekly Smokin' Neighborhood Night in which the lobby bar serves a themed menu of items such as a smoked applewood whisky martini.

A renovation this fall will add eight one-bedroom suites, bringing the total number of suites to 22. and take the hotel down to 152 rooms. The hotel will also renovate some of its existing suites and will convert one of its two boardrooms into an executive boardroom by adding more technology.

Right now the hotel is “a hidden gem,” but with the growth of Pan Pacific, Parente said she hopes more people get in on the secret.

“We're so new in telling our story,” Parente said. “It's time to reach out.”