Fusion Hotels to develop Indian market beyond roadshows & social media

David Roberts

Where does Fusion Hotels stand today?

We are a hotel company split a bit between Vietnam and Thailand. We have an office in Bangkok, and we have an office in Ho Chi Minh City.

We have 25 hotels now, and they are kind of spread almost evenly, maybe a bit more in Vietnam than Thailand. Fusion started really as a wellness hospitality company and a design company.

We actually had 50 people in our office doing interior design for our other projects. We built this really incredible DNA for creative design and we started with a luxury wellness resort in Da Nang, at that time it was called Fusion Maya.

That property went out of our system but it really set us up as a wellness-inspired hospitality company and we grew from there. We have now really diversified. So now we have lifestyle brands, we have mid-scale brands, and upper upscale design driven brands.

We have a very strong collection of experiences and that allows us to really look at many different projects and many different destinations.

We are in all of the key destinations in Vietnam such as Ho Chi Minh, Quy Nhon, Hue, Da Nang and Nha Trang. We are also opening a property in Hanoi this year and we have quite a few hotels in Saigon.

What Fusion is trying to achieve really, is to not only grow ourselves into the largest local hotel company in Vietnam but also a regional operator. So, we are going to branch out into places like Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Maldives and other markets. We are trying to build our portfolio within Southeast Asia.

Our goal is to get from where we are now, 25, to about 50 hotels by 2028. So, it is quite an aggressive growth strategy.  This year we will probably add five or six hotels to our portfolio.

How important is India as a market for your hotels?

In Thailand, we do have a lot of Indian guests in our hotels and it varies by property. Our hotels which are in the markets that are popular with that mid-scale Indian travellers in destinations like Pattaya, Bangkok and some in Phuket, there we have quite a strong Indian customer base and Vietnam is growing.

The challenge with Vietnam is that there is so much more opportunity for Vietnam to bring in the Indian market. We have better destinations, we have better price points than Thailand. We just do not have the flight connectivity.

So, until that improves, we may not see any significant changes, however, we are going to make every effort we can to bring Indian travellers into Vietnam. Next year there is a new airport being opened in Ho Chi Minh and we are hopeful that it will be the catalyst to start to draw more flight traffic.

I think that the number of Indian travellers in most of our hotels at the moment is less than 10 pc. We are quite heavy right now in online markets and in the Korean market and Vietnam is a very strong market for Korea. Some of our flagship resorts have a lot of Korean business.

The rest of Vietnam is really right now driven by Australia, China, Malaysia, and a few other ones. India is building, but I would say for us as a group, it is probably still less than 10 pc.

Which segment of Indian travellers are your hotels best suited for? 

Well, I think for us, most of our properties in Vietnam where we are attracting the Indian market is more for our upper upscale luxury hotels in destinations like Saigon, Da Nang, Phnom Penh.

The other properties that we have which are a bit more mid-scale, we are taking a bit more corporate business in those hotels, a bit more international and not so much from the Indian market. But for our luxury resorts, it is gaining.

How does Fusion Hotels cater to destination weddings?

We are a different type of hotel company in that we do not have the big ballrooms. We are a bit more boutique. We are trying to get bigger hotels with some larger meeting space so we can attract more weddings and MICE business. One of the unique things that we have done, and especially in Ho Chi Minh City, is that the shareholders of our management company also own a MICE business called the Gem Centre, which is quite a famous event space in Ho Chi Minh.

We have had some scenarios where we took some weddings and they stayed in our property and did the wedding function at our next-door neighbour, the Gem Centre, which is a fantastic experience.

The main target for us for MICE and Indian weddings is our project in Ho Tram. The shareholders own a casino development in Ho Tram and in addition to the casino, there is an In Japan Hotel, a Holiday Inn Hotel, and then My Fusion Hotel. There are over 1,000 rooms, and they have a massive banquet convention space.

It is also a beautiful setting right on the beach. There is lots of family entertainment. What we are trying to do is use that first as the catalyst to bring in the big events and the big weddings, and maybe do some of the smaller events at some of our other properties and destinations.

Do you customise your hotel to meet dining needs of Indian clients?

In Thailand, I actually had to have dedicated Indian restaurants for breakfast because I had such a strong component of business from that market. We understand that and the minute we start to get substantial volumes, we will have to cater to that.

We will change our breakfast concepts and we will change our dine-in offerings and things that will adapt to that. We do that for Korea as well. In some of our resorts, Korea is 80 pc of our business. Our buffets almost look like a Korean barbecue set up.

What is the feedback from India after your recent visit?

We are focused actually more on our Vietnam portfolio. We have not really talked too much about our Thailand hotels on this trip because in that market we already have quite a good standing. We got great response for our properties in Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh, and Cam Ran, and not so much interest in other properties which is a shame because some of those destinations are incredible.

Like Quy Nhon is a fantastic destination and that is our ability to package experience, stay a couple nights in HCMC, hop on a flight, come over and relax in the villas in Quy Nhon, and it will be a great experience. We just have to promote that more and talk about it more, and hopefully that will improve. But obviously in key markets we had very good response, very strong response.

Beyond roadshows and meetings, what is your strategy in India?

So far, we have done no print media at all in Vietnam and focussed only on key opinion leaders, social media, online advertising. We launched our loyalty programme completely through opinion leaders’ experiences, and it had a really good impact.

We are not that connected or that well-known in India, so I think in India we have to start with some print media first and start to get into some publications, start to do a bit more interviews, and then slowly work in some opinion leaders’ visits to our properties.