Operations objectives at the Penang Mutiara

There are many luxurious hotels in the South-East Asia region but few can compare with the Penang Mutiara, a 440 room top-of-the-market hotel which nestles in the lush greenery of Malaysia’s Indian Ocean Coast. Owned by Pernas-OUE of Malaysia and managed by Singapore Mandarin International Hotels, the hotels General Manager is Wernie Eisen, a Swiss hotelier who has managed luxury hotels all over the world.

He is under not illusion about the importance of running an effective operation.

Managing a hotel of this size is an immensely complicated task, he says. Our customers have every right to be demanding. They expect first-class service and thats what we have to give them. If we have any …show more content…

It is on the grand occasions, however, when dependability is particularly important in the hotel. When staging a banquet, for example, everything has to be on time. Drinks, food, entertainment have to be available exactly as planned. Any deviation from plan will very soon be noticed by customers.

It is largely a matter of planning the details and anticipating what could go wrong, says Wernie. Once weve done the planning we can anticipate possible problems and plan how to cope with them, or better still, prevent them from occurring in the first place.

Flexibility means a number of things to the hotel. First of all it means that they should be able to meet a guest’s request.

We never like to say NO! says Wernie. For example, if a guest asks for some Camembert cheese and we dont have it in stock, we will make sure that someone goes to the supermarket and tries to get it. If in spite of our best efforts, we cant get any we will negotiate an alternative solution with the guest. This has an important side effect it greatly helps us to maintain the motivation of our staff. We are constantly being asked to do the seemingly impossible yet we do it, and our staff think its great. We all like to be part of an organization which is capable of achieving the very difficult, if not the impossible.

Flexibility in the hotel also means the ability to cope with the seasonal fluctuations in demand. They achieve