 Good morning, my name is Ray Tsuchiyama, I'm your host today on Think Tech Talks. And we're going to have an exciting, very interesting show with a person involved not only with China, tourism, Maui, New York, and the mainland, and global. And we're going to take a show where we delve into issues that many people in Waikiki and the Hawaii business community are thinking about and are hard to wrap their minds around. What is the future of tourism, Asia tourism, Chinese tourism, online and technology impacts. And we have today Yvonne Gu, who is at the Kanapali Beach Hotel as an online marketing manager. And she's had a very interesting series of experiences that projected her onto Maui and to the tourism industry. Welcome to the show, Yvonne. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Terrific. And for our viewers, tell me about your background. Where were you born and raised in China? Where is that? So I was born and raised in Suzhou. That's a very small city next to Shanghai. So we basically are called as a garden for Shanghai people. So we speak Suzhou dialect and Mandarin. And of course, sometimes we speak Shanghai dialect as well. So you can also go to Shanghai and speak to the people there in the Shanghai dialect? Well, that's right. At least I'm very good at dialect. So I went to college and I have no problem. People thought I am Chinese. Because I know that within Shanghai, if they are Shanghaiese, that they speak only in the Shanghai dialect among themselves. Am I correct? Almost. Almost, I have to say. So it's a very inclusive city there. But so tell me about Suzhou. When you say a garden city, isn't it a beautiful historical city in some ways? So Suzhou has 2500 year history, much longer than Shanghai. It's a garden city of the world. Oh, I mean, it was UNESCO, I think, National Heritage Site. It has tons of native, like natural gardens, not natural gardens, but gardens. Canals a little bit? No. But no canals, okay. But the gardens are what makes it beautiful. Gardens were built by those older administrators. They retire and then they wanted to live in somewhere tranquil and peace. That's why they built those gardens and just But Suzhou has been heavily influenced by the big city of Shanghai, I mean, by the culture and the vibrancy. Well, very originally, Shanghai was part of Suzhou. It was just a suburb area of Suzhou. But then, because it's a coastal area. Right, it's a port city. And it's a port city, so it becomes more and more like the fast, like the boats coming and go and then all the goods will transition there. And historically, of course, during the late 19th century and early 20th, it was Shanghai. It was a place for many foreigners, foreign legations and the Bund developed. Many people lived there, from France, Germany, United States, and Great Britain, and so forth. So it was a business economic center even before the war. Yeah. Now, and then you went to the Shanghai Normal University. Tell me about the Shanghai Normal University. What kind of history it has? I don't really know about history. As they call it, Normal University. So very originally, it was only educating for, like, teaching major, education major. So whoever comes graduate from that university is mainly going to be a school teacher, professor, et cetera. Yeah, that's when it teaches college, many places in the U.S. But it changed over time to have many, many different majors, correct? And we were talking before the show on your journey to enter this world of tourism and hospitality. And in the beginning, you really weren't, you know, really that interested. And how did you kind of transform into learning a lot more and making it a career in tourism hospitality? I didn't really sign up for a tourism management major. It was more like being arranged because I wanted to get into that university. My original plan was I wanted to go Chinese literature and become a Chinese teacher or something like scholar, specific on Chinese. But then I went into the tourism management major and kind of liking it throughout the four-year study. And I got a chance to be the first, very first exchange students from China Normal University to UHMC. And then at that time, and we went to Maui in 2011. Right. And then we get the chance to study in UHMC at the same time, working at one of the hotels in Maui. And then throughout that journey, that really developed my love for hospitality industry. And was that the first time you had traveled outside of China when you went to Maui? Or had you traveled places before? No, that's my first time coming to the US. Okay. Or anywhere outside of China? Yes, I correct. I think so. And then you came to Maui, which has its own beautiful, you know, spot in the world and has been named the most beautiful spot by Continas for many years. And I was part of UH Maui College at that time. And Professor Liu, Liu Li Bing was an expert or is an expert in tourism and in global tourism. And she was a pioneer in trying to get, you know, students interns from China. And there was a group within center within the Shanghai Normal University called the Institute of Tourism. Am I correct? What is that Institute about? They specific study tourism. And I think they have different concentrations, let's say, hotels, travel agents, or tool operators, etc. So you can choose your concentration within that institution. But I think they don't provide a bachelor degree. They're like an associate degree. Now, in China itself, the word tourism is not a new term because for many years, of course, China had to really develop itself industrially, really created economic technological base. And that, of course, really came about during the 90s into the 2000s. As I recall, Deng Xiaoping and a lot of reformers in the late 80s really pushed for greater liberalization of economy. So this is a tourism is kind of a recent phenomenon in tourism itself as a recent research topic and teaching topic. Tell me about it. When did it all start to happen tourism to study it or become aware of it? I don't really know about the history, but I think Dr. Li Ping Liu, she was originally working in China, and then she was one of the CEO of one of the tool company. And then back then, 1980s, 70s, 80s, that was when the tourism boomed and everybody wanting to dive into that industry because they found out, oh, actually we have an extra money to do some tourism, to do some recreation, not saying vacation, but because vacation is not really a turn in Canada, we go tourist attractions, we go visit terracotta lorries, we go visit this mountain, something like that. It's a cultural historical travel. And then that time, I think it's everything getting systematic, like who organized what and then what kind of regulations needed. And so you spent some time working internally at the McKenna Resort on Maui. And it must have been a revelation to you. What are the things that you learned during the experience that really you carried forth? Because before that, I never actually interned at a hotel or never actually working in a hotel. I did working for one of the, I think hotel groups as like a trial intern, but you don't really dive into that environment. It's all more office administrative stuff. And then at the McKenna beach and golfers were at that time. And it was really mind blowing when seeing the Aloha spirit meeting hospitality spirit, because already when you're walking on the street, people are going to say Aloha was smiling at you. That's not never happened in big city. Shanghai or New York, nobody's going to smile at you. That would be a little bit weird. So that is definitely mind blowing experience. And then you can see really those stuffs are generating, wanting to deliver a service, want to smile to their guests, want to deliver a good vacation experience. And at that time, what was the tourist composition? Was it mostly from the U.S. mainland, West Coast, Japan, global? What kind of people or tourists did you deal with at that time? McKenna is a little bit different because it was used to be Maui Prince Hotel, which was Japanese owned originally before landmark takeover. So it was still have a big base of Japanese guests. And of course, there are more like male and American coming over. But that time, I wasn't really studying their customer segments. And after McKenna, where did you go back to China? Yes, I go back to China. And what did you do? I got a position at Grand Hire Shanghai, because that's a landmark hotel in Shanghai. Tell me about that. I've stayed there. I think it's like 55 stories. Is it more? Well, the Jingmao Tower is ADA. Oh, ADA. Because it's ADA Central Avenue. So it has ADA's floor. And ADA is such a fortunate number in China, according to Feng Shui. So it has ADA's floor, but not all the floors are hotel. It's part office, part apartment, many, many different types. So the ground floor, we have different entrants. So there is one ground floor is not lobby, like how to say port-a-cache-ish. So you're starting in there, and then you take the elevator to 54th floor. 54th floor is our main lobby. And then the hotel ranging from 54th floor to 87th. Wow. I remember staying there, as I said, in my bathtub, looking at the clouds passed by the window. A fantastic experience. And what did you do there, the Jingmao? I was originally as a PR coordinator. So I'm doing press release, meeting media, relationships, all those organizing events, that kind of things. And then after a few times, and then I transitioned to more marketing, and then doing all the marketing strategies, and then transferred to sales department. So when we were in PR department, we were on 53th floor, because we are more interacting with the chefs, with all the events happening at the lobby or above, and then going to sales department that's on the second floor. That's more closer to the meeting rooms and convention centers, and then you don't really need to communicate with other. So you did various things, and you saw how hotel organized and marketing and so and from there, where did you go? So I worked more than three years at Grand High Shanghai, and then during the working time, I feel like there are something I'm lacking. I don't have a bigger picture view. I don't know how to strategic thinking. I'm only concentrating on my own numbers and how I can improve my own numbers. But that's not, well, I want to achieve more on the hospitality industry. So I need to learn more at that time. So I study whatever I need to study, and then apply for graduate school in America. And as we all know, the best graduate school or best hotel school is Cornell. That's why I applied there, and I fortunately get accepted. So you spent some really great time at Ithaca. That's where it is, right? Ithaca, New York. Very cold Ithaca during the winter. And I've been there. And it's famous also for the Statler Hotel. There's a teaching hotel right on campus, as you said, right next to the buildings for the hospitality programs. Out of that experience, and it's a global hospitality program, any takeaways? What were the key points that you could say you really learned there? So our program called MMH, Master of Management in Hospitality. So that is for educating, how to say, the leaders in hospitality industry, although that's also a lot of four undergraduate students at the same time. Our program is very diverse. Our age range from 21-ish to 50-something. So it's very diverse. And then we all have one year program, which is made to May, very intense class, so you don't really get to do a lot other than studying. So major takeaways, actually, it gives me a bigger picture view, as what I wanted to know, to do a strategic planning, to looking into the organizational behavior. Well, we're going to take away right now and come back to this great topic with a few ads from Think Tech Kauai. Aloha, I'm Kili Ikeena, and I'm here every other week on Mondays at 2 o'clock PM on Think Tech Kauai's Hawaii Together. In Hawaii Together, we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands about working together, working together for a better economy, government, and society. So I invite you into our conversation every other Monday at 2 PM on Think Tech Kauai Broadcast Network. Join us for Hawaii Together. I'm Kili Ikeena. Aloha. Good afternoon, my name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Kauai. We show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. Hi, this is Ray Tsuchiyama on tech talks today with an exciting guest, Yvonne Gu, and we've been talking about what kind of strategic overview that Yvonne learned at Cornell's graduate school in hospitality. Why don't you just go back to that and you say, can you give me an example of a strategic idea that you learned that you could apply or really think about right now from your Cornell experience? So like we dive more into revenue management, which I'm also very interested in. I think all hotels should be applying revenue management, not necessarily to be a system, but it's a thinking strategy by the management team. So it's letting you to foresee the future, not only concentrating on next three months, next six months. You have to see what is economy trained and it's looking like. You have to getting into the bigger environment in order to increase your own number. You are not isolated. So every department and also organizational behavior, every department should not be siled, and then that would be a problem occurred. So these are the things I didn't really think about before because I'm too concentrating on whatever I have to do at that time. So that was like the Cornell would tell me. And we have really good revenue management professor and we have Cheryl Kimes, Dr. Cheryl Kimes, and she is like the funder for revenue management. And she's the first person bringing up the idea of restaurant revenue management. So we are counting the revenue per available seating hours. So you know, we have Rev Pot Hotel. So she has a very posh for the restaurant. So it's a micro view, but yet you say you have to take a macro view. Correct. You have to be both at the same time. So undergraduates, we learn macro management and micro economy. We learn those economies. But at that time, it's so vague. Like what it is, we only know how to do the calculations. We don't really know how that impacts our daily lives. That's not in a practical level. But then when you learn revenue management or think about like a bigger picture, you take it to a practical level. Now, there's one word in your title that I'm curious about online. We talk about online time that the future is online. We talk about Airbnb's and Amazon's and so forth. What does online mean to you? What is it to the hotel industry? I would say I'm millennial. So I grew up in a digital age. I've been using computer things elementary school maybe before that because we at home we have computer like very long time ago. So I grew up with the interaction with computer and I know at that time we can already watch TV on computer instead of you have to buy a DVD disc. So online is very important part of my life. And I think no matter, although hospitality industry is more like people, person-person interaction world, it's somehow need the technology to bridge the gap or even make person-to-person interaction more personalized, interactive. That's my thought of you and with technology evolving, I don't see any robot will be replacing unless that's a really business hotel and then people just want to come and go without interacting with robots functions as check-ins in Japan in Tokyo. Yeah, in Hilton hotel they do have room service for some others by a robot delivered to your room or like developed extra towers to your room, but at least in Hawaii that's what people are looking for. They're looking for interaction with the local. HCA campaign has the Hawaii happen and they have some campaigns or videos about live like a local or a day with a local. So it's all human-human interaction and then that's all like I passing on my experience or passing on what I love or something like that to the guests. We're talking about guests and at your hotel and I know Mike White, the GM from ages ago in the 80s and he's very famous for introducing as we were talking about the host culture among the staff and that when you really love your job and you also love your culture and you understand it, you really include others in a true hospitality movement or within the hotel. The Colorado Polytechnic Beach Hotel has that from the 80s to now has changed in any way in that training or is it basically the same? So I joined the hotel almost two years ago so I'm not a long-term employee over there for sure but it really influenced you. You're starting really concentrating on the use of Okina'i and Kohoku right now. You're concentrating on how to make it correct and then you will be noticing other people are not using correct words. Like today I like the word kind of poly but go ahead. So we have a Polkella program. Polkella means excellence. That's also new I learned once since I joined the hotel. It was originally funded in 1986 so 30 years already more than 30 years already. We had a tree they planted a kukui tree and the funding of the polkella at the property and now the tree is like already a symbol for us because we give kukui none lay to guests upon checkout. So we will tell every guest the story about kukui tree kukui nuts and how they enlighten your life. So all the polkella programs which have a whole training system for the employees so upon they joining the hotel normal hotel will have orientation. We have orientation too but our orientation is a little bit different. Normal hotels will teach them like hotel mission and vision and what your department is doing. The department is doing your interaction but ours are mission and vision how we want to serve our guests and how we want to serve our employees to make them a happy working place and at the same time they are a series of Hawaiian cultural training to the entire employees so they have to finish it in order to get a certificate. So including Olelo Hawaii, Mele which is the song Hawaiian songs will also keep you very famous for their hotel songs. We are the most seen hotel so every Friday we have Friday Aloha sing at the lobby so we will sing to the guests and dance hula to them. Now have you taken surveys of other to the guests that they enjoy this and is a reason for their return to the counterparty beach hotel. They are actually really building the bond with the employees at Halehokipa which are the major conductor for this ceremony. We read tons of surveys about how people love the interaction with auntie and uncle and how they feel this is very touchy-feely. Right now is it a model for other hotels in the world? We don't know if any other hotels apply that because if that's a major hotel groups they have their own orientation schedule. They have very strict brand image or brand guideline to follow. There must be a host culture kind of themes that hotels in other countries or regions or cities could develop that when you go there you really learn and share that culture of that area so it's not like you just go in and go out that you bring back something to your home that you learn something about that culture. Yeah there is even I think one of the news channel was developing a show about how you can learn local things while you stay at that country. So there was like an authentic Mexican cooking demonstration in a hotel in Mexico and then they featured our Hawaiian cultural programs. Well you're here in Honolulu for the Pata Conference and people are talking about the future of tourism in Hawaii. My specific question to you because of your unique experience as a background what is the future of Chinese tourism to Hawaii? What is it today and what could be in the future what people in Waikiki and other Maui or Hawaiian are thinking about and what are your insights? I think it will still largely rely on Hawaii Tour in China. How they portray the image and how they tell the story because there are still a lot of people in China don't know who is eight islands. They thought that's right in a mainland also or the world. I can drive two different islands. Education is still a big part. That's number one. Number one and second story telling how we differentiate Hawaii with Fiji, Bali, Maldives, any other like islands in Philippines and Thailand. How you convince people to come here because it's more expensive definitely more expensive and needs visa. Thailand is visa free for PRC citizens. Yes and I can see the trend of my WeChat. My friends are going here and there. This year I see people go to Europe a lot and then last year I see people go to Japan a lot. So there are trends very much influenced by trend like what other people are going or if that country has a favorable policy towards Chinese guests and how easy is the visa. So visas are very important and ease and of course travel and of course the story or trend what's happening. But when they get to a hotel are there specific things that they would like or expect that would make their stay more comfortable? As I see a lot of trends it's like right now all my friends coming to Hawaii they are not necessarily looking for a Chinese speaker. They're wanting to be more involved with local. They want to know what locals do. That's a great revelation to me. I thought they wanted to be in a Chinese environment still. But they want Chinese food that's for sure because they usually bring their parents. It's majorly a multi-generation travel or like friends with friends family with friends friends family so it's a bigger group. So there are definitely older generations that speak English but the younger generation also speak pretty good English. So they wanted to know where to go where to eat. Which are the better guides better guides that they expect guide online or if there's a guide in Chinese that would be better because I don't know if there's Chinese guide. There are for like Pearl Harbor for sure Missouri that's for sure they have Chinese guides. But they definitely looking for Chinese restaurant because older generation they only wanting to dine in Chinese restaurant. I encounter a lot of people like all younger people with their parents. So we were talking and like oh we we're actually living in LA or we're living somewhere in the US and then we're taking the parents here. Well unfortunately I would like to ask 100 more questions but we're out of time and 30 minutes passed very quickly but I would like to thank you for this introduction. I hope you can come back again because I think the viewers really love this discussion because it gives them insights in the world that is quite still mysterious but you combine online tech with China and with with a lot of Hawaii and and the host culture in a beautiful way. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me here and thank you again viewers of Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you.