Sedona Hotels International

The Sedona group has capitalised on market potential with concerted sales and marketing efforts

Sedona Hotels International, the hotel management arm of Keppel Land Limited, continues to deliver the best in hospitality and comfort, ensuring the highest standards of service quality in all its hotels and serviced apartments. On 19 December 2002, Sedona Suites Hanoi, a 175-room serviced apartment located on the edge of West Lake, was awarded the “Golden Quality Award 2002”. A total of 173 organisations in Vietnam participated in this award competition. Sedona Suites Hanoi is honored to be the only hospitality service provider to receive the award from the Vietnamese Ministry of Science Technology and Environment.

Operating under the Sedona Suites brand name, the serviced apartments in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have performed well once again. Despite a global economic slowdown and keen competition in both cities, Sedona Suites Ho Chi Minh City and Sedona Suites Hanoi continued to enjoy high occupancies of 94% and 87% respectively. The two serviced apartments are currently market leaders in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In Myanmar, the ongoing trade sanctions and the weak global economic condition did not dampen the hotels’ performance for 2002. Sedona Hotel Yangon has in fact achieved higher occupancy as compared to the previous year. Its occupancy for 2002 was 73%, up from 58% in the previous year for the 175 rooms in operation. Sedona Hotel Mandalay continued to achieve full occupancy with 56 rooms in operation. The good performance for both hotels can be attributed to the aggressive sales and marketing strategies that generated more demand from government, corporate and leisure market segments.

MARKETING INITIATIVES

Joint Sales and Marketing Promotions

Myanmar and Vietnam, as up-and-coming destinations, appeal to travellers on the look-out for new destinations to venture to. Sedona has capitalised on this potential market by holding joint promotions and tie-ups with credit cards, banks as well as travel agents and airlines. Through such efforts, it has helped to build up awareness to consumers on these destinations and, at the same time, our properties there.

Online Business

At Sedona, we recognize the potential of online business. Travellers can logon to Sedona’s corporate website www.sedonahotels.com.sg to access information on any of the Sedona hotels as well as to place online reservations.

Bookings to our properties made over the internet as well as Global Distribution Systems have shown an upswing. This is, in part, due to our ongoing focus in adopting an effective online distribution strategy. Besides this, we have also partnered with Fastbooking, an online reservations system, in refining the booking/reservations process.

Advertising

Sedona’s advertising has continued to focus on positioning its hotels as the preferred choice for both discerning business and leisure travellers. Continuous efforts to maximize our advertising dollar has been done through tie-ups with lifestyle/travel trade media on barter basis as far as possible while still achieving maximum exposure and a sound presence amongst the travel trade and consumers.

Travel Trade Shows

Sedona continues to participate in several of the major trade shows in 2002, including the Travel Indonesia Mart and Exhibition in Jakarta and International Tourism Bourse in Berlin.