Spirituality reigns at his King-dom

In the hospitality world where mega mergers are commonplace and maximing profits rule supreme, a Filipino hotel chain is putting its faith on spirituality. “We want to instill values that are Godcentered instead of the values of the world,” Wyden King, founder and chairman of Legend Hotels International, told TravelWeekly.



“The values and attitudes of our management and staff reflect that because spirituality without God as the centre of their lives, everything will be materially motivated.”



The Christian-values based hotel chain has been around for 14 years but its roots go back further, when the family started off with the motel business.



“I decided to get out of the family business and look at getting into the hotel business. Most of the big players had good locations, huge resources and technology, how can I compete with them?



“And even in the future, if I had good properties, there will always be newer hotels so what we did was to segmentise the market and develop our services hardware and humanware to serve the particular market,” he said.



“We have a lot of Christians patronising our hotels because we are known as a Christian hotel.



“Our employees pray for the guest; even before a tour, we pray.”



“Aside from the human ware, I believe we focus more on our guests. The competition is not what we have but what products we will be innovating in the next two to three years – how we can anticipate our target market needs,” said King.



He said the differentiating factor is that while the bigger chains have to cater to a wide range of guests, his chain focuses on giving their guests not only an unusual experience, but also a wholesome one. “There are things we are not – we are not for travellers looking for casinos, women or drinks.



“We are a family hotel; we promote corporate bonding and hosting groups,” he said. The hotels also host marriage enrichment retreats and religious retreats.



Asked how Christian values go hand in hand with the business of running hotels, he said: “Christianity dictates we have to be righteous so we pay our taxes and we are transparent in our dealings and be above board.



“We tell our staff that we have to treat our customers in an excellent way so even though the boss might not be looking, God sees it,” he said.



He said his next step is to open the family business to ownership by the stakeholders. He’s not averse to being listed.



Today the hotel chain prides itself in being 100 percent Filipino-owned and managed, expressing its uniqueness in its hospitality, food and architecture. It has five properties with four brands in Metro Manila and Palawan. The flagship 125-room Legend Villas serves the corporate markets of the capital. The Legend Palawan in Puerto Princesa targets large corporate groups and big families.



LHI also has The Mabuhay Manor, a hotel serving returning Filipino nationals and foreign travellers looking for valuefor- money accommodation The Kabayan Hotel Pasay and Kabayan Hotel Cubao caters to overseas Filipino workers and domestic business travellers who may travel to Manila and use it as a jump-off point to visit other areas.



LHI wants to carve a slice of the global market and had participated at the recent ASEAN Tourism Forum in Davao city for the first time. It’s working on chartered flights from Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.