Industry Voices 

Loh Lik Peng: The stuff of New Majestic dreams
 
Since its opening, the New Majestic Hotel has got people talking. Its half-finished looking lobby, its individually designed rooms, its swimming pole with a glass bottom that allows swimmers to look at diners below, and vice versa.  P@SSPORT talks to Loh Lik Peng, the man behind the designer, boutique hotel in the heart of Chinatown.

In 2005, Loh Lik Peng won the Singapore Tourism Board's New Tourism Entrepreneur Of The Year award for his work on Hotel 1929, Singapore’s first hip budget hotel.

Hotel 1929 on Keong Saik Road was Loh’s first hotel venture. Before that, he knew nothing about the hotel business.

Born in Dublin to Singaporean parents practising there, he studied law in the UK and returned to Singapore in 1997 to seek opportunities in “the Asia decade”.

“In the mid-90s, everyone was talking about the Asia decade and we all came back with big dreams.”

Then the financial bubble burst and he found himself having to deal with clients who had lost their money. “It was so depressing that I decided to try something different.”

The opportunity came when the site of Hotel 1929 on Keong Saik Road in Chinatown came up for sale. “It was very cheap (S$3.4 million) and I decided I’d do a hip budget hotel. It was experimental.”

Loh spent about S$1 million transforming the hotel. “I was inspired by a few hotels I had seen in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona and there was none in Singapore. I came into it with no preconceived notions.”

Today, Hotel 1929 which opened in February 2003 is full almost every night, running 90 percent occupancy year-round.

The secret to Hotel 1929’s success? Loh puts it down to “the right timing”.

“It was a new entrant. If it had opened now, it would have made less of an impact. Let’s face it – a glass toilet was news then. Now, no one would raise an eyebrow. But it was cutting edge in Singapore at the time and the market was ready for it.”

Hotel 1929 gave him a taste for more. When the site of the old Majestic Hotel came up for sale, Loh bought it for about S$7 million and spent S$3 million transforming the conservation shophouses into his new baby.

And what a different-looking baby.

Loh set out to make a statement and he makes no bones about the fact that he built it with himself as customer in mind.

The lobby ceiling looks half-finished because he decided to keep the original ceiling after finding it buried under several layers of paint. The swimming pool has three glass portholes in its floor which look down on the Majestic Restaurant, which serves contemporary Chinese cuisine.

Each room type comes with different designs and names that conjure up the imagination – the Mirror Room, Hanging Bed Room, Aquarium Room and Loft Room.

Then there are the rooms where individual Singapore artists have been allowed to give free rein to their creativity. “Fluid” by fashion designer Wykidd Song of Song+Kelly21 is all about space, swirls and simplicity;
Work” by graphic designer Theseus Chan uses all plywood; “Wayang”, by film and theatre director Glenn Goei, which evokes Chinese cinematic dreams; “Untitled” by furniture designer Patrick Chia which is heavy on cement; and “The Pussy Parlour” by fashion show producer Daniel Boey with fuschia and turquoise accents, French chandeliers, a brass bed, neon lights and mirrors.

Rates at the New Majestic are priced between US$150 and US$250, a clear sign that Loh is pitching for the higher end customer who would normally pay for a luxury hotel in Orchard Road or the Marina area.

“I believe the market is ready for a high end boutique hotel. Singapore needs more hotels that make us unique, give us an identity,” said Loh, who is obviously hoping that just as his timing was right with Hotel 1929, it too will prove to be so with New Majestic.

With the New Majestic now open, Loh is busy making sure he gets the hotel ready and right for its targeted clients – the design-conscious crowd and very clearly, the pink dollar.

He knows success will come mainly through word of mouth and already, the New Majestic is generating plenty of talk and publicity.

Just last month, it earned its first international accolade – a place on Conde Nast’s Hot List 2006 of the world’s most hospitable hotels and resorts, the only hotel in Singapore on the list of hotels or resorts that “care for its guests as well as its looks”.
 
Loh is also taking it one step at a time as far as expansion is concerned. “I would like to do something in Bangkok or Shanghai but only if the right opportunity comes along."