Running a hotel for the sake of filling rooms and serving meals has never motivated Armando Kraenzlin, regional vice president of Four Seasons Resorts Maldives for the past 20 years. Instead, he prefers to do what feels right, which to him means creating bigger successes within the local community in which he operates.
“Whenever I moved, I never had a short-term horizon,” said the 59-year-old stalwart of conscious management and forward-thinking environmental planning. “I always take a medium-term or long-term horizon because I find that more interesting. What are the decisions that I take today? How do they affect the business and the environment in five years, in 10 years? That’s what excites me. If I only look at two years, I don’t do the difficult and meaningful work.”
Taking lessons first learned when working for Kurt Wachtveitl at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok 32 years ago, Kraenzlin has created and delivered on multiple local programs in the Maldives. Among the most notable: the country’s first government-recognized apprenticeship program, which has graduated some 650 locals since 2002; the first Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, now 10 years old with close to 300 admissions so far; the first coral reefscaping project in 2001, which has boosted the natural reefs around Four Seasons’ two Maldivian resort islands with more than 5,000 transplanted reef structures and inspired a countrywide program of coral reefscaping.
He has also introduced the country’s first – and still most extensive – Marine Discovery Centres. Working with environmental agencies, they support a full-time team of “Marine Savers” marine biologists, interns, apprentices and scientists from the Manta Trust.
Nimble mindset
Now, the Swiss native’s brief includes turning something good out of the COVID-19 disaster. If he has learned one thing during the crisis it is the importance of being nimble with structures that allow for some flexibility.
The first key move was convincing the owner, B.S. Ong’s Singapore-based luxury hotel company Hotel Properties Ltd., as well as management company Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, to stay open when many of the airlines stopped flying into the island nation. Then leadership decided not to terminate anyone (they were able to get by with salary cuts and some unpaid leave).
“This team is very strong. The spirit on this island is very different. I dare say, it’s sort of a community spirit. We live together here 24/7, basically… It has been like running an Ibis in the back of the house and a Four Seasons at the front of the house. And sometimes I’m not quite sure which ‘hotel’ is more difficult to run.”
But the Four Seasons properties in the Maldives did remain open, albeit initially with seven guests who were still paying high room rates.
“It was enough for us to get up in the morning, put on the uniforms, order the mozzarella and pretend we were running a great hotel. And you know what? That gave a lot of courage to the team. It gave us a sense of purpose and we never really fell into that hole of not knowing how are we going to get out of this. Because we were just praying that these people wouldn’t check out, and all of them had the means to actually call in the private jet. And some did, but we never had zero guests during all this time.”
Once the borders of the country reopened, the resort had a flying start compared to others that shut down, and today occupancies are in the low double digits, according to Kraenzlin. But with high rates even low occupancy levels look OK.
“We had a good month of August. We are having a difficult month of September, and then from October onward, we hope to pick up,” he added. “We have two, maybe three bookings on our private islands for October, and that would give us about 75% occupancy for the month on that island with very high rates. It’s a great morale booster. And then we enter into November, December festivities with lots of repeaters expected. Hopefully, by Q1 2021 we’re in decent shape again.”
Tapping free spirits
The other key initiative was staying engaged in the market to stay top of mind with customers, especially repeaters. “You want to be ahead as you exit the tunnel,” Kraenzlin said. “And I think we’ve set ourselves up fairly well for that.”
He has remained diversified in his marketing reach, not just counting on regional travelers – many of whom still can’t reach the destination via air travel. Americans are coming, along with some Middle Easterners, while Europeans remain guarded, he said.
But Kraenzlin also has come to understand that right now there are two types of travelers – the adventurers who are not worried about COVID, and those more constrained by lifestyle due to health circumstances or extended families.
“We are still addressing ourselves to the free spirits who have the means to travel. It’s not about discounts. It’s about the experiences,” Kraenzlin said. “And you have seen all the advertising and promotional clips and campaigns of hotel companies that show people in masks. And if you look at Four Seasons, you will never see an ad with anybody wearing a mask. And I agree with that because our customers know that when they come here, all this is taken care of. So, what we are focusing on is manta season. You have to come now because now is manta season and we’ll take care of the rest.”
The hotel created a PDF that explains to guests what to expect when they arrive. “And then we zero in on everything that’s happening here on the holiday front, how you can relax, and the experiences available.”
There has been some modification to programming. For example, a sunset fishing boat that goes out with 20 guests every night is now a private experience. “The whole idea of group activities goes to the background and the idea of individual, escorted experiences at sea or on the island takes over. And sometimes that comes as a surcharge; sometimes it doesn’t,” Kraenzlin said.
The hotel is also rolling out a yoga program to boost immunity and a doctor who is an herbal specialist who makes a potion for guests and employees for breakfast. “It really tastes like medicine but you’d be surprised how many people now line up for this.”
Further on the F&B side, only two restaurants are currently open, but the staff will do a private teppanyaki, Sri Lankan or Indian dinner served on the beach in-room, etc. “This wide spectrum of food and beverage offerings has not decreased because we have closed restaurants. There’s a lot more individual pampering, and the mantra is not to say, ‘no.’”
Choosing the Maldives
Looking ahead, Kraenzlin said recovery might take longer as forward-looking bookings into the January high season so far look mediocre. Not having domestic business and heavy reliance on long-haul travel guides his thinking. “I think we can be profitable in 2021. But to bring back the old days of success is going to take a couple of years,” he said.
More personally, Kraenzlin, who is a PADI diving instructor, yogi and now a vegetarian, said he thinks he has found his calling in the Maldives. “This is a location for people who really embrace a lifestyle like this. People live and work on a mountain or on a ship, for example. It’s a choice, and I enjoy this choice.”
He spends seven months in the Maldives and gets to spend the other five months traveling the world – when there isn’t a pandemic. “I have a great lifestyle that allows me to call home an environment that I really enjoy and gives me the global traveler dream. So, life has been good to me here. I am very conscious and very grateful.”