Company	Mirvac
Industry	Building/Construction
Benefits	Business Efficiency
MFD	Business Colour

Hotel’s success built on strong partnerships

According to Lachlan Furnell, Mirvac’s Regional Sales and Marketing Manager —Queensland Hotels and Resorts division, the key to the hotel group’s growing success is through the development of strong partnerships.

“I believe that a successful business is built by establishing strong partnerships at all levels of the business. This includes building partnerships with our staff, our suppliers and our valued customers,” said Mr Furnell.

“We also believe in giving something back to the local community. Initiatives such as our sponsorship of the Brisbane Lions and the Children’s Cancer Support Group are two examples.”

Mr Furnell has been in his current position four almost five years and prior to that had ten years experience with the Accor group. His last position being the General Manager of Sales and Marketing in Vietnam where he looked after seven hotel properties.

He comments that since joining Mirvac he has seen significant growth in the company’s Hotels and Resorts division.

“When I started in 2002 Mirvac had four hotels and resorts in Queensland. Today the company operates 11 hotels and resorts in Queensland as well as a golf course located in Cairns.”

According to the company’s website the acquisition of the Carlton hotel portfolio in February of 2007 has made Mirvac Hotels & Resorts one of Australia’s largest hotel operators. It has grown in the last 12 months from 26 to almost 40 properties and more than 5000 guestrooms, suites, villas and apartments in Australia and New Zealand. The company is well advanced with plans to expand in the South Pacific.

The website reports the company as being a leading integrated ASX-listed, real estate group with more than $22.2 billon of activities under control across the real estate, funds management and hotel management spectrum.

Mr Furnell is quick to point out that the acquisition of the Carlton Crest and subsequent re-branding as The Sebel and Citigate King George Square is much more than just a name change for the hotel.

“The Carlton and Mayfair Crest was the first real international hotel in Brisbane. After 38 years it still remains the largest hotel in Brisbane with a total of 438 rooms in the two tower facility. We have the ability to host a cocktail party for up to 1000 people. The hotel has a great history behind it so it’s a very special product to have acquired,” he said.

Mr Furnell stresses that while the hotel’s name has changed the actual marketing of the hotel will feature the special relationship that it has played in the lives of Brisbane and Queensland people over the past 38 years.

As with any take over great care was taken to ensure that the transition went smoothly.

“Our hotel’s General Manager, Gillian Millar is one of Mirvac’s specialists involved with opening new product. Gillian is responsible for creating the Mirvac ‘feel’ and ensuring that all the company procedures are implemented.

“Gillian Millar has done a fabulous job. Firstly by retaining 90 percent of the staff and making them feel very comfortable and creating a loyalty to the Mirvac brand almost immediately. With close to 300full and part time staff that was quite an achievement,” he said.

The introduction of an in-house staff loyalty program known as ‘The Mivac Way’ was one of the measures that won immediate support of the staff.

Mr Furnell refers to his staff as associates and the ‘Mirvac Way’ program offers them a real buy into improving the performance of the hotel with awards, prizes and share option incentives.

“The second step was to understand where the business was at, where it was going and to identify the opportunities for growth. The results have been immediate,” he said.

A major benefit from the Mirvac’s acquisition has been the multi-million dollar investment in a soft refurbishment program. This has seen the five star Sebel and four star Citigate tower rooms upgraded with new bedding, light and bathroom fittings, LCD screen TVs as well as the upgrading of the in-room services including Foxtel.

“The Sebel rooms are in the vicinity of forty square metres. The rooms are very large with big double basins in the bathroom and generally queen or king beds, an extra sitting chair and a work table. The size of the Citigate rooms are slightly smaller but are still a really good size four star room,” he said.

According to Mr Furnell apart from upgrading the rooms, all of the public areas will be refurbished during the next six to twelve months.

The upgrade of the hotel also included a review of all the office equipment. Incoming management saw the need to replace a raft of various pieces of office equipment with more modern and appropriate technology.

“The criteria that management set for the new office equipment was speed, reliability, quality and value. While all stakeholders from the various departments were involved in the process the IT Manager along with our GM were the people who actually ensured that our requirements were met,” he said.

“Toshiba was awarded the contract to provide the hotel with a total of seven e-STUDIO digital multi function imaging units. These networked MFDs now handle all of the hotel’s requirements for printing, scanning, faxing and copying.

“Five of the Toshiba e-STUDIO MFDs are colour units and the other two are black and white.

Mr Furnell said that the colour quality output was particularly critical for the Sales and Marketing, Banquet Operations and Human Resources departments.

“The look and feel of our internal and external communication is very important to management. The e-STUDIOs now give us the ability to quickly produce quality colour material that previously we were outsourcing.

“We have also invested in sending some of our staff on creative design training courses so that we have the ability to internally create smart, fun looking communication material.

“Things like personalized menus for client functions are now able to be handled internally by the e-STUDIOs. We are saving an enormous amount of money producing effective printed material internally.

“The Sebel and Citigate King George Square Brisbane is a quality brand and as such all our printed material must reflect that. The Toshiba e-STUDIO has assisted us in producing smart, effective communication material of the highest order. I’d call that a good partnership between customer and supplier.”