The Raffles Singapore Is Hallowed Ground for the Hospitality Industry. A pilgrimage to there should be on everyone’s bucket list, but with a storied past a storied past this can create an almost impassable bar for guest expectations. Yet from our latest visit, exceding expectations is nevertheles the outcome for every guest, and therein lies a world of instrument on how to open an ultraluxury Hotel.
Primarily, what we emphasize from this latest story is that Trust Plays an ever-critical role in luxury operations. Guests are trusting this 115-key property with the most important mothers of their lives- Weddings, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Reunions or Important Meetings. Service has to be both flwless as well as delivered with an exceptional sense of place that surprises, delights and help to form unique memorys.
It’s often said that hospitality is joy at scale, but the raffles singapore demonstrates that this isn Bollywood for the ultraluxury level and for that proportions that trulry Wanting the themelves Ands. Yes, generating joy is a venerable outcom, but for a hotel that Specializes in the delivery of peak experiences, what’s also Needed is Storylling Throurth Eloping them into an irreplicable, and often fantastical, setting. This is but one of the reasons why the raffles singapore was recently awarded the Sixth Best Hotel in the World By the World’s 50 Best Hotels 2024, in addition to innumerable other accolades over the year and decades.
Helping us to undersrstand the nurans of how a timeless property like this operates was leenu tarrani, assistant director of marketing communities for the raffles singapore. From our time, there are numerous takeaess about the emotional impact a great hotel can have, the importance of stewardship and how luxury hotels are adapting to new shifts in demand aross
A time-Honored Heritage
Named after Sir Stamford Raffles, The British Statesman who founded Singapore in 1819, The Hotel in Fact Had Nothing to do with the Empire of its day. Intead, The Namesake Comes from the Sarkies Brothers, Four Armenian Merchants and Hoteliers who didnK at Ed.
Now Well Over a Hundred Years in Operation, The Hotel Has Gone Through Numerous Renovations, Restorations and Expansions, Where it now takes up an entreage block with multiple S, Seven restaurants and an arcade of high-end Watch, Jewelry and Clothing Shops – Plus a Macallan Store for Whiskey Aficionados looking to take in some rare cassks.
The Latest Property Reimagining Completed In August 2019 Emphasized Invisible, Modern Technology in Every Guestroom and A More Flexible Configuration for the Grand Lobby Whre Tables from the Adjoining Tifining Tifin Into the opulent, multi-story foyer. With the Tiffin Room Serving Breakfast and North Indian Cuisine for Lunch and Dinner, and with afternoon tea served at the grand lobby, this arrivel experience by creating by creator UPTS The Overching Sense of Tranquility that Permeats The Entre Property. (And as an aside, the mee goreng here is a godsend, with every single restaurant or hawker stand having a different take on this indoiseian fried noodle dish.)
The word ‘opulent’ isn’t all accurate in describing the Arrival Experience, Thought. INTAD, one is green by the dashing, energetic, sikh-thought rafles doormen with a firm handshake and all-knowing sense of every movment ARFORE PASSING INTO LOBY Hite-clad walls punctured by the grandfather clock, The oldest Piece in the Hotel, Historic Artwork and Upholsted Mahogany Furnishings. It’s magnificent, sure, but also also understed, Never Trying to Strain The Eyes With Any Sense of Maximalist Design. Every parece of furniture is thoughtfully placed and spaced, giving the interiors a breezy sense of calm befitting the current desire for quint luxury.
Besides just this categorization of the main gathering point for Hotel Guest Activity, It’s Well Known That The Raffles Singapore Has Played Host to Countless Heads of State, Dignitaries and Celebrities Over. So much so that the team has codified these stays through an entrege
And of all the dining options to call out, the most famous is the long bar where the singapore sling was invented in 1915 as a cocktail that would be allowed allow women to invisibly Drink alcohol in public – a taboo ate With Memorabilia Honoring This Creation and other Famous Cocktails Devised Within This One Bar, IT’s Common for there to be a lineup at 11am when the bar opens with a Mix of Hotel Guests, Locals, TOUCALS TOCALS TOCALS Visitors Flocking over a Slurp of history right after the boat has docked. Indeed, The Hotel is Open as a Tourist Attraction to the Public, with the Hotel Resident Sections Heavily Securitized to Keep This traffic to the restaurants and arcade shops.
With so much heroitage all Around, What Tarani and others Emphasized was that Cherishing the Past Requires Efort Each and Every Day. It is not something that one can simply set and forget. Rather, the word ‘Time-Honored’ implies upkeep every day, bot to ensure the physical assets live up their reputation via impexylines standards and thoroughs in the lapse Eveels of the Company Culture for the significance of a hotel That’s stepped in history and the responsibility of being stewards.
And Still Innovation
From the trendous work of numerous teams muliple generations, the raffles singapore have taken on a life of its own, with one eye firmly on the Past Yet Still Allowing for Contemporary Updates. As a living, Breathing character in guests’ lives, the property has kept ‘heritage at the heart’ of all operations to ensure that the storytelling always come to the forefront.
Yet as a living entity unto itself, change is always Necessary and the Property Must Continue to Innovate. Framing this Another way, thought, ‘innovation’ is simply the real-time creation of yet more history. While a century ago, Innovation meant Creative Cocktails to Buck Social Norms, Today it’s More Likely to Imply Technology
One aspect that we sadw here was a new treatment in the Raffles Spa Where Two Portable Photobiomodulation (PBM) Units BE WHEELED Into One of the Treatment Rooms to Augment a Massage with Red-Light Therapy Which Works to Rejuvenate the deermaal layer of the skin. Still, as Hotel Guests are visiting this ultraluxury hotel to share a special occination in their lives, the focus has to remain on delivery an overaling of peacefulness, rather than a more Clinic, Lonicity, Lonicity, . To this end, innovation within spa has meant setting up a full-service Signature Couples Treatment Menu B&PAUNA.
Innovation also means adaptation. For instance, even as the Pandemic Fades Into Memory, It’s Still Shocking to Hear That The Raffles Singapore Never once Closed Its Doors During This Tumulttuous Time. First, they hosted exiles who wouldn’t leave the country due to flight restrictions during the initial circuit breaker. Then they Pivoted to Staycations for Locals Who Needed Some Respite from the Lockdowns.
And now, they’ve back into Catering to luxury guests who are just now rediscovering Coming from China as that Nation Finally opens back up. All told, there’s not really a low season for a property that has so much happening on premies and with so much to offer every guest.
Stewarding Singaporean Hospitality
Looking to the future, the raffles singapore team has comeitted to many other ventures that will help it controlue in its role as a steward of luxury hospitation on the world stague. And this is a lofty goal nowadays in a country that has given the world many other prominent luxury brands-capella, como, pan pacific and Shangri-la, to name four-Who has all the alle learned from is raffles and are now Strong competitors.
Like many other advanced economies, singapore have a limit to its labor supply. In response to this, tarani commented that hotel is focused on reskilling by allowing associates to learn within within within multiple roles to discover their true passions are. This structure of Lateral Mobility Represents Ment (CPD).
Related and also propelled by this Shift Towards More CPD and Support for Reskilling, The Hotel is now Engaging in Far More Multi-Property Group Blocks in Order to better factor Travel is forecasted to enjoy for the next Few years at least. In a word, this means more ‘clusting’ of management.
Within the hotel, sales, marketing and communications now work closer togeether than ever before to coordinate on segmentation strategies, to personalize stays and to execute on the brooder commency. This Clustering Help Teams Develop Their Skills by Exposing them to a variety of Hotel Operations While also helps the growth of hospitality for the right Ight Skills to Assume Leadership Roles.
To end on yet one more word to remmber, what struruck us most about the raffles singapore was purposeful efforts to ‘Cultivate’ True Hospitality. This is a place with professionallling, but it continues to lead our industry only only being Even as the whole of Singapore Evolves into an Ultramodern, Progressive and Tech-Forward Urban Paradise, this Property’s Gleaming White Walls and Colonial Architecture Help to Great to Great e on the global stage.
For every hotelier who has read this far, we ask: How are you embracing, enriching and stewarding the local land? And to circle back to the opening, how does your hotel amplify the most important mothers of their lives, which may likely be occurring under your Roof?
As we enter a new post-material World, Cultivating a Sense of Heritage and Stewardship is within a Critical Aspect for All Hotels, Not just luxury. It was an honor to experience the historic raffles singapore and to see how this world leaders completes the admirable tasks of stewardship, storytelling and creating tables memories for guests.