Tsz Chung Chan Guest Lecture Review 1 10/07

Ms. Amanda Hyndman graduated from the University of UK. She did not start her

hospitality career instantly, but she quickly obtained a job in catering. She briefly

mentioned that she started cleaning rooms in one small hotel in England. However, it is

the career path that most, if not all, general managers have to go through. They have to be

familiar with the operations of each department before they climb to the chair of the king

(queen in this case!). She became the general manager when she was about twenty-eight

years old in England, and has been with this position for about fifteen years. She has been

with Mandarin Oriental for three and half years. She was sent to manage the four-star

property in Hong Kong for about two and half years ago and recently was assigned to

manage the property in Southwest D.C.

Her slides showed that the mission of Mandarin Oriental is to be widely recognized

as luxurious and try to grow globally. Taipei, Paris, Beijing, Moscow, and Milan will be

part of the portfolio in 2012. The brand is defined as a family of individual hotels and

resorts, which has distinct personality but links with oriental roots. This is how the brand

differentiates from the other luxury brands.

She emphasized solvency in the section of intelligent cost management. One must

be solvent before thinking about earnings, or would disappear from the market as some
examples which she did not mention. She also believes the service profit chain, which is

embedded in this curriculum, as well as hotel training manuals. Recruit to Culture >

Training & Development > Fulfilling Work Experience > Contented Motivated

Colleagues > Efficient Service > Delight Guests > Repeat Guests. She focuses more on

the bold parts, because the correct attitudes of the human resources would automatically

do the rest of the chain, and this is exactly the belief that I learned from TSTD 290 and

summer internship at the Four Seasons.

Similar to others in the industry, she said that the largest responsibility of leaders is

to create more leaders. It seems to be more true to me now, as many in the industry that I

know personally tell me the same. I initially thought it was rather unrealistic, because

how would others help you take over their jobs? However, the industry professionals

have proven to me that many are willing to help us climb the career path, but we must

help ourselves first, so this ‘concept’ strikes me the most in spite of its simplicity.

One take-away is on the cultural issues. She compared Hong Kong with the U.S.,

and she thinks that Hong Kong employees have more respect for seniority, and many take

their jobs for life, because of harsh personal circumstances. The HR Department helps

quite a lot on that, whereas those are not the core issues in the U.S. Thus, when we think

of expanding our businesses worldwide, we must accommodate certain cultural issues.

 The second take-away is the ability to sell the benefits. Despite some students

asked some tough questions regarding the location of the property; the size, maturity and

image of the brand, et cetera, she was able to counter argue and to provide reasons why

people should stay at the hotel. Meanwhile, I did not feel any aggressiveness, so her

ability to sell the benefits or sell what she has surely demonstrates me an example of

good selling skills to a large group of perspective clients.