Heritage Station Hotel

LABZ : In early 2008, I landed my first posting as a Hotel Consultant assuming the role of Hotel Manager. When I told my Hotelier friends about the project at The Heritage Station Hotel, the first question asked was “Where?”. After I told them the location, their next comment was “What The Hell!”. Yes, The Heritage Station Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, was not even remotely known then. When I visited the property with my partners Henry Butcher, I was taken aback – dirty, dilapidated, gypsum partition boards in the rooms, mattresses and carpets that were never changed for 15 years! That’s just to name a few! Embroiled in a legal suit with the landlords for 15 years on a 30 year lease. This Hotel was really in need of a gigantic makeover, but the lessee was not willing to invest more into the property due to the legal issues. After some research, everything pointed to the negative, from Fung Sui [Chanced upon an article in the local dailies on the building and its surroundings] right to the horrendous guest comments. It was going to be a real challenge.

I do believe many of my colleagues in the Hotel Industry would have backed down from such a project. But my time at The Heritage Station Hotel Kuala Lumpur was magical. You had extremely limited resources whilst keeping afloat and growing the business. Pressure, pressure, pressure! When I took over the reins officially, 2 main areas were apparent;

• Most Malaysians in general do not even know the location of the building, let alone the Hotel inside it, even though it is a gazetted National Heritage Building [Bangunan Warisan Negara]. Only commuters using KTMB Train Services were aware of the building, but not necessarily aware of the Hotel.
• They were marketing themselves as a 6 Star Budget Hotel, with limited internet support and access. This was something I could not fathom as the product could not equate to the marketing tagline.

The first 3 months was, as expected, tough but the team at The Heritage Station Hotel Kuala Lumpur were very supportive, and together we revamped the direction of the Hotel, returning to the basic fundamentals. I had grand visions for this Hotel, starting with small baby steps to begin with a No Frill, Budget Hotel —> Community Based Hotel —> Living Museum. The owner/lessee was pleasantly surprised at the outcome and made a pledge to us, if we could garner sufficient funds, he would plow back the funds into the Hotel, and how many Hotel owners do you know that is dedicated to this after a couple of bumps? The Heritage Station Hotel was the perfect place for me and the team to experiment with new ideas and concepts at that time. I decided to try things in reverse as opposed to the norm in the Malaysian Hotel Industry, by opening The Heritage Station Hotel’s doors to Pre Wedding and Wedding Photography for FREE. Hotels normally view this as taboo, cause it doesn’t generate sustainable income, is deemed to be an invasion of their guests privacy, creates noise pollution and is a security threat to the hotel itself. That being said, I went on the angle that Malaysians never seemed interested in History, so I took this as doing our bit in promoting Malaysian History and our Buildings of National Heritage (Bangunan Warisan Malaysia). The end result was very encouraging as we seemed to garner a lot of interest in the property which subsequently brought a lot of inquiries on room stays as well as conference/cocktail business for the Hotel! And who said FREE marketing does not work? Malaysian Hotel Management in general needs to rethink their strategies and read updated books like the Google Story.

The feeling of meeting new people everyday for just photo shoot, enlivened the Hotel’s atmosphere but it did not stop there, as I had organised many community events with partners, the pleasure of setting up http://www.prewedding.info (now at the domain http://heritagehotelmalaysia.blogspot.com) and more importantly, to do in-depth research on the Building itself, which led to the founding of The Hubback Brothers Tribute. How often do you get to fulfill so much in such a short time? Remember, I said earlier that my time in The Heritage Station Hotel was magical. To top it all off, I was extremely surprised to find, over the next few months, that the Heritage Station Hotel, Kuala Lumpur was the only budget hotel to be nominated as a finalist for the Most Popular Hotel Award 2009 – Asia Pacific by Hotel Club!