Transforming Customer Experience at Sheraton Okinawa Sun Marina
This article explores innovation in service management: how a corporate philosophy can lead to innovation from the back office to the contact points with the customer. We interview Jean-Raphael Felus, General Manager of the Sheraton Okinawa Sunmarina Resort. We also hear from recent GLOBIS graduate and current employee Tracy Acosta.
CV: Jean-Raphael, you must have seen a lot of change throughout your impressive career in hospitality and services. What seem to be the highlights of change in this exciting industry?
JRF: Well, Cristian, as you well know, more and more hotels are being built and opening by the day, giving guests many more options than they have ever had before.
First of all, as we speak, guests worldwide experience a continuous shift from real agents to on-line travel agents. What used to be the job of a real person servicing a real customer looking for a holiday, in many markets and countries is now the job of a webpage or an application. For us, this has eased travel and has lowered many traditional barriers to entry. In Okinawa, just as in many other parts of the country, we see an influx of international guests which very few of us might have anticipated a decade ago. Recently, social networks are making things even more dynamic, as more and more information is available on each hotel, making it even more complex for the guest looking to spend time away from home. Selecting a hotel, a restaurant or a resort to travel to from the numerous options available has become harder and harder. Therefore, owning a brand which customers trust, can easily recognize, and want to be associated with is more powerful than ever.
On the other side, though, with the wealth of options for hospitality professionals to choose from, the industry is seeing an increasing lack of manpower. The best brands and facilities often attract the best talent in the region, while other hospitality providers strive to attract and retain talent and enhance their people operations.
CV: It sounds like your industry is never short of challenges. How do you innovate to cope with all these changes?
JRF: Teamwork. Teamwork and teamwork once again. There is no other way. We constantly reach out to each other to organize in-house support, from back-office teams to front-office teams, in order to deliver the ultimate food & beverage experience at breakfast, dinner, housekeeping, spa, beach and any point of interaction with our guests.
CV: How do people manage all that?
JRF: Most frequently, simply by multi-tasking. Our staff need to be multi-skilled and constantly aware of our guests’ intentions. Knowing how to anticipate what comes next and how to create an ultimate experience for every single customer at every single opportunity is key in our trade. We actively hire interns, foreign staff with working holiday visas who love working in this industry and who have the language skills required by our international guests. In our business, it is mandatory to absolutely love and take the utmost pride and responsibility in every single step of what we are doing. Bringing your whole self to work is not an option—It is a mission. A mission which needs to be completed with a smile, courtesy and genuine friendliness.
CV: Does that always work?
JRF: There are times when it does and there are, of course, times when we struggle.
We often have to be creative in our people operations in order to make decisions and ensure operational efficiencies. At times, we have to change outsourcing operations to in-house contracted work force (such as housekeeping), in order to make sure that we have the right number of staff needed to face the seasonal increase of business. Other times, we need to increase promotions offered through online travel agencies to ensure that we have a constant influx of guests. Innovation never stops on our grounds! We have recently expanded our offering for families visiting together with little children by adding a kids’ zone and a dedicated playground. On the other side, we are also aware that we need to constantly entertain the kids’ parents as well. With that in mind, we have recently introduced projection mapping in our lobby area and slot car racing tracks, which are all unique activities for a hotel in Okinawa. We have also put up a zipline adventure, first of its kind in a hotel and first one ever to travel over the ocean!
CV: Flying over the ocean in a zipline! Is everyone staying at your hotel that adventurous?
JRF: Many people are! This is one of the most sought-after activities in our resort. For those who prefer a different experience, though, we offer scuba-diving sessions and glass-bottom boat rides to venture out in the ocean and “say hello” to many kinds of colorful fish in their natural habitat. For our more artistic-minded guests, we have prepared a whole “Wall of Expression,” where guests of all ages can draw to express themselves. We have a coloring set in the restaurant and live fish in the lobby pond, where kids can enjoy feeding them.
CV: This is all extremely impressive. Is there anything you are doing to “romance” the technology lovers visiting your resort?
JRF: We want to be sure that we have a little bit of everything for everyone. There are digital displays in the lobby area, constantly introducing our various facilities and making dining suggestions aligned with our restaurant menus. There is a digital concierge where the tech-savvy can obtain instantaneous suggestions for fun and new discoveries. We also use our digital space for timely responses to our guests’ comments on various social media. Our guests love to know that we listen to them, and we love to show our love back to them in real time.
CV: There never seems to be a boring moment at your resort!
With the increasing number of overseas guests travelling a long way to be here, is there anything traditional or anything unique to the region that you offer?
JRF: Hospitality knows no frontiers, Cristian, and Japanese hospitality, omotenashi, is known worldwide. People in Okinawa are known to be very kind and a little more laid-back than big city dwellers. Our team consists 50% of local people from Okinawa, and we try to balance this with Japanese mainland and overseas staff.
As many of our guests are looking for a genuine, local experience, we have a large number of Okinawan food choices for breakfast, and our dinner buffet is themed on Okinawa as well.
Besides this, there are many kinds of traditional Okinawa entertainment nearby. Our concierge is always on stand-by for those who feel tempted to experience more.
CV: Everyone seems to be always on stand-by! How do you orchestrate all this?
JRF: There is no end to training. We are planning for our front desk staff to go through the official Okinawa guide course offered by the Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau, so that they are knowledgeable with the local culture and offerings. We want to make sure that we know Okinawa better than anyone else and that we are fully prepared to welcome and entertain every single guest who walks through our doors with our best professional expertise. Therefore, training, training and training once again! Regardless of the season, job title, or level of experience.
CV: Jean-Raphael, thank you very much for these wonderful insights!
I am already eager to be back in town!
JRF: It is always a great pleasure to welcome guests, family and friends back home to Okinawa!
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A GLOBIS graduate, Tracy Acosta (far right in the photo above), interned with the Sheraton Okinawa and now works there. Here are her comments:
“Working in the service industry was entirely a new thing for me, given my banking background. I started as an intern at Sheraton Okinawa Sunmarina Resort and it has been a fun-filled journey. It was definitely not the typical Japanese workplace that I had first thought of. I’m working for the Business Development team. While I am new to hotel management as well as the Japanese language, my colleagues have been very supportive and helpful to me, even though I the only foreigner on our team. My coworkers are the happiest people on the island, with our daily doses of laughter and smiles even when things sometimes become challenging.
I am most impressed with what I would describe as interdepartmental cooperation across ALL levels of the organization. To illustrate, whenever the Food & Beverage team needs assistance in the restaurants, our team will lend a hand—including my director, managers, supervisors and even the general manager—removing each round of plates for the next set of guests. Furthermore, when the Housekeeping team was shorthanded, my director, managers and I removed used bed sheets to expedite the cleaning process.
As I learned in my Service Management class at GLOBIS University, a good corporate culture is a competitive advantage that cannot be easily acquired, implemented and maintained in an organization. Indeed, this is one of the sustainable strengths of Sheraton Okinawa Sunmarina Resort, a shared corporate culture which provides an opportunity for employees to learn about the aspects of hotel management and the value of leading by example by serving as a role model for the younger members of the organization.”
Jean-Raphael Felus
General Manager, Sheraton Okinawa Sunmarina Resort
Jean-Raphael has been leading change and innovation in people operations and organizational development within the hospitality industry in Japan for decades. After inspiring cross-cultural growth with world-valued hotel brands in Tokyo, Jean-Raphael became the General Manager of the Sheraton Okinawa Sunmarina Resort, currently orchestrating operations and inspiring young generations of hospitality professionals.
Cristian Vlad
GLOBIS Partner Faculty; President & CEO JCE Japan Creative Enterprise
A seasoned veteran of business transformation, organizational development and innovation initiatives, both in terms of product and organizational innovation, Cristian Vlad is the President and CEO of JCE Japan Creative Enterprise, a young and dynamic agency which helps corporate teams transform their business and manage their talent. Cristian has been advising global clients on the role of diversity, human capital, creativity and corporate communications as strategic business drivers to foster innovation and stimulate business growth. He has been recognized by both multinational corporations and emerging enterprises as a thought leader in the areas of business strategy, relationship management, organizational development and architecture, leadership, social media, collaborative environments, people operations, transformation and business model innovation. In parallel, Cristian is an IBM Global Business Services consultant, advising corporate clients on Talent and Organizational Transformation projects. Prior to his current role, Cristian was project manager at Toyota Motor Corporation, where he led a team of advanced product development professionals within the Corporate Value Creation Department. He also consulted on numerous organizational changes, corporate rebranding and transformation projects globally, in a wide rage of industries. Cristian holds an MA in International Relations from Hirosaki University and a dual BA in Communications and Foreign Language Education from the University of Bucharest. Cristian currently resides in Fukuoka, Hong Kong and San Francisco.
Tracy Acosta
GLOBIS MBA Graduate; Business Development, Sheraton Okinawa Sun Marina
Native to the Philippines, Tracy is a Globis MBA graduate currently working in Business Development with the Sheraton Okinawa Sun Marina hotel. Tracy started her career in banking, exploring modern financial instruments and advanced people operations. Her current role in hospitality and services has brought a whole new dimension to her career. In Okinawa, Tracy is constantly discovering new ways of delighting international customers and engineering fun into all parts of her life.
