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I have been glamping before and I was not im-pressed, mainly because the washroom facilities were a fair hike from the tent.
But glamping in the Thai rainforest at Elephant Hills camp in Southern Thailand was easy to take since there was a shower, western-style toilet and sink and in-room coffee and tea. There was even a hair dryer and — sometimes tempera-mental — Wi-Fi. King-size beds with triple sheeting, mirrors and a fan helped make this luxury camping, indeed.
The camp is an hour-long drive down Highway 401, Thailand’s jungle highway leading westward from Surat Thani airport.
The camp was remote and moderately rustic, but one of the first things I learned is that the rainforest is not quiet. The cicadas that provide a gentle hum that is the back-ground of our Canadian summer, are am-plified in the Thai jungle. One reason is that they’re bigger. Joining the symphony are birds and monkeys calling to each other.
Our first activity was the elephant camp, where we washed the elephants — think of
a car wash but with tall, living, moving mam-mals. The elephants were placid and seemed to enjoy being scrubbed and hosed down.
Back at camp that night, we watched six local girls aged seven to 11 dressed in tradi-tional costumes perform Thai dances, laugh-ing and smiling as the youngest dropped her coconut shell during the final number. We also learned how to make pad Thai.
Rain was inevitable — it is a rainforest and we were there at the start of the rainy season. That night, the skies opened. We lay snug in our bed as the monsoon poured down, listen-ing to the pounding on the corrugated tin roof overtop of our tent. It seemed to quiet the insects, birds and animals who resumed their serenade once the rain had stopped.
We changed location the next morning, taking an open-air school bus to the Ratchapahni Dam in Khao Sok
national park, then travelled by Thai long tail boat to a floating tent camp.
Once again, we glamped. This time, the tent didn’t have a hair dryer, in-room coffee and tea or Wi-Fi and the camp was on a float-ing platform and powered by solar, but other-wise the setup was similar to the jungle camp.
We kept hearing gibbons calling to each other in a strange whooping noise, and the next day on a kayaking trip we actually saw the no-tailed monkeys, dangling from trees.
Not terribly hard to take.Colleen Isherwood, Editor
By Amir Anders
There is no secret recipe to maximizing guest occupancy dur-ing a hotel renovation. Minimizing the inter-ference in your guests’ experience and mini-
mizing the downtime is the obvious goal. Taking the time to sufficiently prepare for the renovation and partnering with an ex-perienced general contractor will allow for a successful renovation.
We always tell our clients that they can’t spend too much time on planning for the renovation and asking all the important questions before the work begins. Experi-ence, efficiency and speed are a few of the main ingredients. After all, the quicker the area is renovated, the quicker it can go back into inventory and return to generat-ing revenue.
Review your sales data: It’s best to renovate during a lower occupancy period when you will be displacing fewer guests. By having a larger area of the property available for renovation at one time, it al-lows the general contractor to be more ef-ficient, lowering your costs and property area downtimes. It is also essential to limit work to daytime hours — in this way the trades will be working during the times that most guests are not physically in the hotel.
Build a ‘mock-up room’ before
starting the renovations. Doing this will un-cover problems early on and answer 90 per cent of potential questions. It will enable your design team to fine-tune their process-es before the renovations get into full swing. This will also go a long way to keep the renovation on-schedule once it kicks off.
Renovate floor by floor: Start from the top downward and remove two floors at a time out of inventory, always keeping a buffer floor between the occupied and the under-construction floors. Stopping the flow of the construction is both costly and detrimental to the schedule. Once the top floor is completed and put back into inven-tory, release another floor to the trades.
Have a plan B and C for materi-als. While the designers may have chosen some sleek finishes, it is important to have a few options to choose from in case some are not immediately available. While Asia is often the default market from which to purchase, sourcing domestically will ensure that items won’t get stuck in customs or ex-perience shipping delays that will ultimate-ly delay the entire project.
Make every effort to ensure that your property doesn’t look like it’s under renovation. One of the main goals for owners during a renovation should be to minimize disruption to guests and to prevent them from feeling as if they’re stay-ing in a construction zone. It is critical to diligently separate areas under renovation from the rest of the hotel. Allocate funds to
an interim reception area that doesn’t look sparse or slapped together. Ensure tem-porary areas are well decorated and don’t look “temporary.” Have a plan for how long various areas will be out of revenue and identify areas that can be expedited so they resume contributing to revenues as soon as possible. Keep workmen out of sight of guests by ensuring that all guest ar-eas are off limits to the trades. Above all, have areas adjacent to those under renova-tion cleaned constantly; this is imperative for both appearance and for safety.
Work with the best and the most experienced architects, interior design-ers, engineers and procurement agents. Cooperation amongst the team of profes-sionals is one of the most important com-ponents of a successful project. The ex-pertise of each one of them will positively affect the renovation schedule and reduce the overall renovation timeline. Ensure that the plans are clearly understood by all the stakeholders involved.
One cannot overemphasize the impor-tance of proper pre-planning. By following these suggestions, you will make the overall process run smoothly and allow for maxi-mum occupancy during the renovations.
Amir Anders is president of Jemlor Construc-tion Inc., a general contracting firm specializing in the construction & renovation of commercial, in-dustrial and hotel projects across Canada. You can reach him at [email protected]
Glamping Thai style
Maximizing hotel renos
E D I T O R I A L
S P O T L I G H T
Amir Anders
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CANADIAN LODGING NEWS VOLUME 12 · NO. 7 · SEPTEMBER 2015
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Publisher Steve Isherwood at the jungle camp.
