Soaring Higher Than Ever – Plaza Premium Group’s Song Hoi-see tells how his airport hospitality empire has grown

In the two-and-a-half years since The Peak sat down with the ever-genial Song Hoi-see, there’ve been quite a few new developments that have taken place – many of which he points out with a smile. “Obviously, there have been certain physical changes: I have more white hair!” laughs the Founder and CEO of Plaza Premium Group.

That could very well be due to the runaway success of his company, which is now a global specialist for bespoke premium airport services in over 160 locations, with a footprint across 44 international airports in 21 countries. Given that Plaza Premium Group serves over 14 million passengers annually, a few white hairs are more than permissible when you think of the amount of work Song must have to put in to keep tabs on everything that’s going on.

Combine that with the fact that he was named the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) 2018 Malaysia while the company was celebrating its 20th anniversary last year, one gets the feeling that things are moving at warp-speed for Song and Plaza Premium Group – not that he minds. “Oh, and did I mention that I’ve become a grandfather?” he adds.

MR WORLDWIDE

When you consider that Plaza Premium Group grew out of a single idea – to establish the world’s first independent pay-in airport lounge for all travellers, regardless of airline or travel class – it really is remarkable to see the extent to which Song has grown it into a truly global company with a diverse portfolio of services. Far from being a one-trick pony, it has numerous other brands to its name, including Plaza Premium First, an ‘elevated lounge experience for elite travellers’; Allways airport meet-and-greet services; Aerotel, a chain of airport transit hotels; and a number of health-conscious airport F&B outlets.

A less well-publicised side of its operations is Plaza Premium Group’s management of airline lounges for various airlines and global aviation alliances, such as Cathay Pacific and Star Alliance – another example of Song’s canny ability to build strong networks within the aviation industry and strengthen his company’s foothold. All in all, it’s certainly enough to keep the company’s 5,000-plus employees busy, especially since new outlets keep popping up all over the world.

The past year has seen Plaza Premium Lounge debuting in Jakarta, Cebu and Ahmedabad with the latest addition in Langkawi, while the new Plaza Premium First lounge concept was launched in Hong Kong International Airport and KL International Airport to commemorate the Group’s 20th Anniversary celebration. As for Aerotel, which has become the world’s largest airport transit hotel chain ever since the first of its kind was unveiled at Changi Airport in 2016, it seems that travellers can’t get enough of the brand. The most recent addition to the chain – Aerotel Guangzhou – is one of nine locations in Plaza Premium Group’s network and the first in China. Aerotel Beijing at the new Beijing Daxing International Airport will debut end of 2019 while the airport will open in October. This is part of Plaza Premium Group’s strategic expansion into mainland China. Aerotel Beijing will also be a flagship location with more than 200 rooms.

“I’ve always said that I founded my business because of my bad experiences,” Song recalls, referring to his early entrepreneurial days when he became frustrated at being unable to gain access to airport lounges as an economy class passenger. “Similarly, Aerotel came about through our observations when we were creating our lounges. We saw people lying on the floor and sleeping on airport benches, so we started interviewing them and conducting our own research.

“It wasn’t that the people on the floor didn’t have money, but they saw no value in paying for 24 hours in a hotel room when they only wanted to spend a few hours there. Also, the location of most hotels wasn’t convenient because they were too far from the airport. So, we developed Aerotel, which is always attached to an airport terminal building – either landside or airside – to create much more convenience for our passengers. Its DNA is that the room has to be soundproof, the amenities have to be excellent, the shower pressure has to be strong – and the water must be hot – while we’ve invested in the bed and provided hard and soft pillows to make our guests comfortable.”

It’s an airport facility that many a weary traveller will be glad to see, be it someone who’s arrived on such a late flight that all public transport networks and taxis have stopped, and they can’t face a two- or three-hour drive home by themselves, or a passenger with a 6am flight who hates skimping on sleep. “Can you imagine what time you’d have to wake up if your house is hours away from the airport?” he exclaims. “Your journey will be spoilt from the beginning purely because of that.

“At Aerotel, whether you’re in transit or you’ve come off an 11-hour red-eye flight, you can check in anytime and refresh yourself. Unlike a conventional hotel, you don’t have to wait for your room to be ready.”

MIND THE GAPS

Not contented with setting up Aerotel, Song also set up an even more economical version – Refreshhh by Aerotel – to satisfy the requirements of another portion of the travel market. “We realised that even though we offer our guest rooms for a minimum of six hours, there are backpackers who still won’t want to pay that much money. That’s why we created our select-service airport accommodation for people who want a simple place to rest. They get a bed and shared shower facilities, and, obviously, the price is much lower than Aerotel – so we’ve continued to look for opportunities.

“The reason we keep looking is very simple: in 20 or even 10 years, airports have changed so much, as have the modes of travelling. Global passengers will double to 14.6 billion by 2029 and treble to 22.3 billion per annum by 2040. A lot of airports have had to upsize, in the same way that KLIA now has Terminal klia2. An airport is no longer just a piece of transportation infrastructure that allows you to travel from one place to another. Travelling has become a lifestyle over the past five years.

“People select an airport based on whether its services meet their requirements, which is why airports continue to evolve and come up with concepts and ideas to take care of their customers. Any good airport understands the mode of travel and the profile of its customers.” It’s a rule that clearly applies to Plaza Premium Group too, where every gap in the market represents the tantalising prospect of future services. “That’s how we’ve grown – through solving inefficiency gaps at airports. Travellers are very discerning. They want new things, they travel faster around the world, and they know what they want – so, you have to move faster than them.

“We started Plaza Premium First because we felt there was another category of customers who weren’t being taken care of, and it allowed us to upgrade the quality of our service. We did meet-and-greet services because we realised that people travel but there’s no one taking care of them when they require assistance. Then we went into airport dining – which, if you visit any airport in the world, is often all about deep-fried comfort food because it’s the easiest thing to do. But people have become very conscious about what they’re eating, especially millennials – they want to know what they’re putting in their mouths.

“In response to that, we developed our own brands – Flight Club, The Green Market and Root98 – which provide healthy food inspired by herbs and seeds.” It’s the main drivers of the clean-eating movement – those precocious millennials again – who Song appears to be most intrigued by at the moment. “I keep saying that the area in which many airports can be found lacking is that they don’t take care of millennials. They’re big future travellers, and our future customers. Give them five or 10 years to grow, when they’ll be in a business and taking care of their finances, and they will prove to be very important to the travel industry.” Already plugged into the nuances of his youthful customer base, he’s adjusted his lounges to suit them.

“We design our lounges in such a way that we have different sections for them to work in, which lends it the right environment and ambience. If an airport has a lot of millennials, we ensure the food isn’t too expensive for them, and that there’s good Internet with a lot of digital interaction. We’re believers in brand loyalty, and I want to create the sort of brand that will be a household name. My vision is that if you’re at an airport and see my brand, you can be sure it’s a good airport.”

NO STOPPING NOW

Armed with what looks like a comfortable grasp of the airport services market, Plaza Premium Group’s success begs the question of whether it has any competitors, if at all. “We do but, to be frank, after 20 years in this business, it’s not easy for them to come about. There are a lot of challenges in terms of supply and demand – for instance, there’s limited space in airports for competitors to rent. It’s so restricted because they’ve already planned to install a lounge there, and it’s hard to find another operator to put one in and compete with an existing lounge.

“The second thing is that finding the right people to work in these lounges isn’t easy, either. We’ve learned that as well these past two decades and have formed a solid system of operations, with policy procedures and KPIs on our operation systems that are clearly stated. On the demand side, our network has grown from strength to strength. A lot of airlines know about us and our reputation is good, so they’re attached to us. Instead of signing contracts with many operators, they follow us wherever we go and sign a contract with one person, knowing that we can deliver a consistent quality of service. That’s the advantage of being in the business for so long.”

It’s this wealth of experience that Song is currently in the process of passing down to to his two children: his daughter takes care of Plaza Premium Group’s branding, while his son handles the international business development and is busy entering the North American airport market. Not, of course, that he has any plans to retire just yet. “The day you hear I’m retiring, it means we’ve run out of ideas. It’s only without new things that I’ll ever consider retiring. We have a lot more to come. We’ve developed a loyalty programme called ‘Arrture’ – we combined ‘arrival’ and ‘departure’ in one word – where we’ve consolidated all our airport operators and concessioners to provide this programme to travellers.”

With Arrture’s launch due to take place closer to May or June, Song will only say: “We want to keep it a bit of a secret so that, when we launch, it will shake the whole aviation industry – we’re that confident. So far, no one has done anything like it in the market.” Besides that, the Group already has grand plans to invest USD100 million in four countries with the world’s heaviest recorded passenger traffic flow: China, the United States, India and Indonesia. “Looking at China alone: the Chinese outbound travellers, on their trips to 157 countries and regions, spent more than USD120 billion in 2018, compared to USD100 billion in 2017,” Song remarks. “We obviously know it’s a huge market and have been working really hard over the past 10 years to penetrate China.

“A lot of Chinese have travelled abroad and want a certain quality of service – and if the Chinese themselves won’t or cannot provide that quality of service, there will definitely be complaints. Once the airport authorities understood that, China began to open up and welcome specialist service providers, so we’re slowly moving in. We’re now operating in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, and we’re going into Qingdao as well. I always tell my children that anything good requires a lot of effort!”

As for the message he’d like to convey to the next generation of entrepreneurs, he has two nuggets of wisdom for them: “Don’t be scared of making mistakes – that’s a normal thing in a business. As long as you think big and dare to try, mistakes are a future success. Also, you don’t need enormous capital to be a successful entrepreneur. If you find a niche for your business, you can do it – just like I did.”

TEXT RENYI LIM

ART DIRECTION AUDREY LIM

PHOTOGRAPHY KIM MUN/ STUDIO 20 TWELVE

PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT NAQIU