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Life's
a Beach
By Michael Alan Hamlin
May 24, 2004
The Pearl of the Pacific Hotel in Boracay markets
itself as "heaven in paradise." If it is, hell is even
worse than I had thought. While Boracay has the world's best beach
going for it, the Pearl of the Pacific Hotel represents much of
what is wrong with the island paradise, which has had a tough couple
of years brought on by the war on terror and last year's SARS scare.
But Boracay's real problems are strategic, and deeper than either
of those two short-term threats.
How so? First is the matter of short-term perspective. May is the
Korean wedding month, as well as the last month of the school summer
break here. So the island's hotels and resorts are again jam-packed.
As I've noted in this space before, when times are good and a seller's
market prevails, hotels typically forget that markets are inherently
cyclical, and that breathtaking dips always follow even healthy
seasonal gains.
As a result customer service suffers, and goodwill turns to animosity.
The Pearl of the Pacific experience my family and I had recently
illustrates this reality. The hotel package featured two inclusive
breakfasts and two dinners. Unfortunately, dinners are typically
overbooked, and so some guests must go without some of the most
popular menu items promised on the limited menu, such as grilled
prawns and squid. And it's somewhat awkward to have to fight over
the buffet like shoppers elbowing each other over a discount counter.
Since the Pearl of the Pacific package costs even more than a comparable
package at less well-known resorts such as Club Paradise - which
has excellent food and never runs out - it's hard to imagine why
the hotel runs out of food as if on cue. Except for the obvious
reason that the Pearl of the Pacific, as a matter of policy apparently,
short-changes its guests.
There were other surprises as well. When we checked in, our rooms
sported threadbare sheets, dirty towels, and lonely minibars. No
one had swept under the beds for what looked like years, and the
Roman shades mechanism was broken in one. At breakfast, tasteless
brown water was provided as coffee. My mother-in-law bought instant
coffee sachets to make it drinkable. The lobby toilets had no running
water. Our reservation for a masseuse was ignored by the front desk
receptionist. And when our youngest daughter sat on a lounge chair
in her just-purchased shorts, it turned out to be newly painted,
with no sign to warn guests away.
Young Korean honeymooners make great victims. A majority, presumably,
won't be back for another honeymoon anytime soon, so no matter how
shabbily they are treated they represent little future lost revenue.
Unless, of course, you consider that it's probably unlikely that
they'll recommend the hotel - or the island - to their friends and
family members when they begin planning their own honeymoons and
vacations.
One particularly galling episode deserves mention because it tragically
characterizes the quality of service overall at the hotel. As we
were preparing to check out, a housekeeping staff member inspected
our rooms. This is a fairly typical practice for tier two hotels
which don't trust their guests to tell the truth about what they
took from the minibar. That's only part of the reason the Pearl
of the Pacific Hotel inspects rooms before guests are allowed to
complete checkout, however. The other is, now get this, to check
for stains on sheets and pillow cases. Apparently, guests must pay
for any sheets and pillow cases they leave stained. In front of
me, the housekeeper nonchalantly called the front desk reporting,
"No minibar; no stains."
Anecdotal evidence emerging from informal talks with other guests
on the island suggests that hotel and resort service is generally
unsatisfactory and certainly unspectacular. We found that to be
the case for the native food stalls in the market as well. They,
like the hotel, seemed to find themselves running out of food but
failing to mention that unhappy fact when inviting guests to avail
of their "hospitality."
There were, of course, some important bright spots aside from the
beach. One is some truly world-class restaurants, like the quaint
Caribo operated by Edgar Mercado. Mercado's Mediterranean menu is
revised every six months, and last week featured exceptionally thoughtful
offerings that would receive rave reviews anywhere. We were so happy
with our lunch the third day of our visit, that we returned to Caribo
on our fourth, and last day. I still dream of the rice in crab fat.
As we sat relaxing over coffee following that first lunch, Mercado
told us that he had fashioned his restaurant after those he'd visited
on the Mediterranean. "We have a much better beach here,"
he told me, "but we have no culture. Mediterranean villagers
take such pride in the way they present their stores and restaurants.
Each one has real character. Unfortunately, you don't see that here.
It's just an opportunity to make money."
There's nothing wrong with making money, of course. The problem
is when making money is purely an opportunistic endeavor, which
is when it becomes a bit like mining. Miners exploit the resource,
and when it's gone, they leave. Establishments like Pearl of the
Pacific are doing something similar. But instead of just exploiting
resources, or customers, they are driving them away. If they don't
wake up, though, the result will be the same: no more resources
to exploit.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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