Genting Group

Missions
1. Be responsive to the changing demands of our customers and excel in providing quality products and services.

2. Be committed to innovation and the adoption of new technology to achieve competitive advantage.

3. Generate a fair return to our shareholders.

4. Pursue personnel policies, which recognize and reward performance and contributions of employees and provide proper training, development and opportunities for career advancement.

5. Be a responsible corporate citizen, committed to enhancing corporate governance at transparency.

Organization Background

Resorts World Berhad is a member company of the Genting Group, it is know as one of Asia’s leading and best managed multinationals. At the same time, Resorts World is one of the world’s leading leisure and hospitality corporations with strong financial and management expertise in developing and managing integrated entertainment resorts.

What made Resort World famous will be Genting Highlands Resort, which was voted the World’s Leading Casino Resort 2005 and Asia’s Leading Casino Resort 2005 & 2006 by World Travel Awards. This well-known resort offers 6 hotels with 10,000 rooms, 60 fun rides, 170 dining and shopping outlets, mega shows, international business convention facilities and endless entertainment all in one location. With the location at 2,000 metres (6,000 feet) above sea level, Genting Highlands Resort enjoys fresh cool climate all year round and splendid view of its surrounding mountains. In addition to its successful story, one of its hotels First World Hotel is the world’s largest hotel with 6,118 rooms where it was officially acknowledged by Guinness World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Furthermore, Resorts World owns and operates the Awana hotel chain, comprising three beautifully designed hotels in Malaysia such as Awana Genting Highlands Golf & Country Resort, Awana Kijal Golf, Beach & Spa Resort at Terengganu and Awana Porto Malai, Langkawi. Moreover, Resort World Berhad has its associate, Star Cruises Limited that it is the world’s third largest cruise line and the leading cruise line in Asia-Pacific, operating under internationally recognized brands of Star Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, NCL America, Orient Lines and Cruise Ferries. In the way to provide best service quality, it has a combined fleet of 21 ships in service with three new ships due to be delivered by 2010.

Plus, Resorts World has 6% equity interest in Genting International P.L.C, which oversees the international leisure and gaming-related businesses of the Genting Group. Genting International has 46 casino properties in the United Kingdom (“UK”) under the brands of the Stanley Leisure group. Recently, Resort World is spreading out its fame to Singapore with the effort of developing Resorts World at Sentosa, an integrated leisure and entertainment resort on Sentosa Island.

Our Group of Comments

Based on our research, there are five general missions implemented in their business. These five missions can be defined clearly to fulfill the five different aspects in their business activities. In instance, missions 1 to 5 focused on customers, competitors, shareholders, employees, and publics.

In our opinion, we think that the missions of Resort World Berhad really concern to each particular important aspects in their business. However, we think that Resort World Berhad does not take in consideration in environmental and social responsibility. In addition, this company does not have a specific vision to be referred. In fact, vision plays an important role for this company because it may portray the future of their achievement that consequently gives more confident to their customers, competitors, shareholders, employees, and publics. Referring to the “Good Mission Statement” guidelines, there are few that Resort World Berhad had accomplished. Firstly, the missions had clearly described the company’s responsibility to its shareholders. Secondly, the company do really has their effort in the strategic positioning to enhance their competitive advantage. Besides, we think that Resort World Berhad did make a statement to give a portrait of the company regarding the culture where it is to be responsible corporate citizen, committed to enhancing corporate governance at transparency.

As to conclude, Resort World Berhad has a easy to read missions that give better understanding to all related parties.

Value Chain of Resort World Berhad

Table 1 Value Chain of Resort World Berhad
Firm Infrastructure
(General management, accounting, finance, strategic planning)
Human Resource Management
(Recruiting, training, development)

Technology Development
(R & D, product and process improvement)

Operations
(Daily business operations) Marketing and Sales
(Advertising, promotion, channel distribution) Services
(Customer service, maintenance and repair)

The above Table 1 showed the structure of the Resort World Berhad’s value chain. Basically there are three primary activities of the company that portrait how the company delivers values to its customers. These primary activities are operations, marketing and sales, and services. Beside, there are some support activities to support the primary activities so that they can be completed effectively, which are technology development, human resource management, and firm infrastructure.

The operations of Resort World Berhad include the daily business operations such as hotel check-in and check-out, ticket selling, and room services. Basically these operations are the activities that provide the first contact to the guests or customers which normally involve the staffs and facilities. These operations can help to create values to the customers by increasing their satisfaction toward the company’s products and services. In Resort World Berhad, the customer satisfaction is generated through the politeness, friendliness, and experience of the staffs and also the best facilities such as a wide lobby to avoid the crowd and lots of ticket counters to make sure the ticket selling is fast and smooth.

The second primary activity is marketing and sales. Resort World Berhad is doing an effective advertising and marketing campaign such as the variety of advertising medium (newspapers, magazines, radios, TV commercials, and website), attractiveness of the events organized, and the innovative promotional packages where change according to seasons or festive. Beside, Resort World Berhad also developed an effective and interactive website to offer the services of online-booking and online market survey. The online-booking service saves the costs and time of the customers and the online market survey helps the company to identify existing and potential customer segments and needs. Furthermore, Resort World Berhad also has a wide distribution channels in which it works with travel agencies worldwide to promote its hotels and theme park. In terms of customer reward, World Card is being introduced to reward the loyal customers. World Card is a cumulative point system exclusive for members to enjoy the free or special discounts entitled to accommodations and foods. Due to the great effort by Resort World Berhad, the company has successfully generated a good reputation among the customer segments.

The next primary activity of Resort World Berhad is services. The services here include the customer service, maintenance and repair. Resort World Berhad has developed an effective customer service where there are lots of customer service counters in every part of Genting and the staffs are trained, polite and friendly. These customer service functions help to generate a positive image of the company as Resort World Berhad understands the needs of its customers and it is ready to help those who in need. In the aspect of maintenance and repair, there are a number of knowledgeable and skillful engineers in Resort World Berhad. They check the theme park equipments from time to time in order to ensure the security and if problem encountered, they fix it immediately. These efforts are crucial to make the customers feel secure when entering the theme park.

One of the support activities of Resort World Berhad is the technology development. The technology development department works on the research and development (R&D), product and process improvement. R & D are done to discover the new model of theme park equipment whereas product and process improvement mainly to improve the existing product and process through introducing new technology. For an example, Resort World Berhad had introduced a Telephone Call Accounting System (TCA) in the year 2000 to monitor the increasing number of telephone calls instead of using manual operations (Y2K Disclosure, 1999). Other than that, this technology development department also contributes to the development of the effective and interactive website of Resort World Berhad.

Another support activity of Resort World Berhad is the human resource management. Basically there are three stages in the Resort World Berhad human resource management namely recruiting, training, and development. In the recruiting process, the procedures involved are effective as it practices the both the online and walk-in recruiting, employee selection based on the requirements of academic background and age. Next, all the employees regardless the news or olds, are provided with the training courses such as facial and body language talk, and communication skills. This stage is crucial in training more knowledgeable and skillful staffs for Resort World Berhad. Lastly, the development stage includes job rotations and hotel or department transfer in order to produce employees with different requirement of capabilities and skills, and also to avoid the employees to feel bored.

Lastly, the firm infrastructures of Resort World Berhad are also supporting its primary activities. Firm infrastructures such as general management ensures the coordination and integration both the primary and support activities throughout the firm, accounting and finance to maintain the positive financial status and to provide confident to the firm’s stakeholders, investors, and bankers. The strategic planning of Resort World Berhad helps to facilitate and enhance the accomplishment of its organizational goal of becoming committed to innovative and the adoption of new technology to achieve competitive advantage (Annual Report, 2006).

Portal 5-Forces Model of Resort World Berhad

I. Threats of New Entrants

Apart from the existing competitors, there is one potential new entrant in the theme park industry, which is the most famous theme park entertainment – Disneyland in Nusajaya, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. This rumor might be a significant threat to Resort World Berhad indeed. Disneyland do have a very huge capital to set up their theme park in Malaysia. Due to this strong capital, Disneyland might enjoy the economies scale as what Resort World Berhad does.

In terms of differentiation of Disneyland and Resort World Berhad, the core different is the weather in both location. Resort World Berhad has a distinctive competency of cool weather, which can make Resort World Berhad a significant different from the Disneyland theme park. Apart from that, Resort World Berhad did have the competitive advantages by providing resorts and hotel instead of theme park. In fact, Disneyland only put their attention on theme park. Therefore, Resort World Berhad might not feel much threaten by the new entrant of Disneyland in terms of differentiation aspect. Moreover, the government policies might have an effect on the entrant barrier of Disneyland to Malaysia. In fact, if government is highly encouraging more new entrants to this industry, this might be a threats to Resort World Berhad where these new entrants might take the market share away from the industry. Consequently, this may force Resort World Berhad to learn new way to compete by changing their strategies or implementations indeed.

II. Substitute Products

There are many substitute products in terms of hotel services. According to the statistic from Ministry of Tourism, stated that there are 229 hotels and total of 30,401 rooms supply in Kuala Lumpur year of 2006. In our opinion, hotels in Kuala Lumpur might be the significant substitute product to hotels of Resort World Berhad. For instance, public can travel to Genting Highland without staying there as well but stay in Kuala Lumpur hotels. This is because the cheaper prices in Kuala Lumpur hotels compare with Genting Highland hotels and the factor of short driving distance, which less than an hour from Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highland indeed.

III. Bargaining Power of Suppliers

In our opinion, we think that Resort World Berhad has a strong bargaining power rather than their supplier (employees). In other words, the employees of Resort World Berhad have low bargaining power where they did not have bargaining power of their salaries, working schedule, or even accommodation services provided by Resort World Berhad. For instance, employees have to stay in whatever hostel that provided by Resort World Berhad because this accommodation services are totally free of charges indeed. Apart from that, employees are not able to make any changes of their working schedule that fixed by Resort World Berhad.

IV. Bargaining Power of Buyers

According to our experiences as a buyer for Resort World Berhad, we think that the bargaining powers of buyers are definitely weak indeed. Resort World Berhad can be considered monopolized the whole market in Genting Highland. For example, if we visit and stay over night at Genting Highland, the only hospitality services provider is Resort World Berhad in fact. As the results, no matter how, we have to use their hospitality services as well. In other words, if they charge the buyers with higher rate of hotel, we have to pay anyway or else we have no rooms to stay.

V. Competitive Rivalry

According to Minister of tourism’s statistics, Genting Highland had the highest occupancy rate (78.7) in Malaysia hotel industry, year of 2006. Hotels and resorts of Resort World Berhad remain a very high and stable rate as compared with other hotels in Malaysia. This shows that Resort World Berhad have a certain advantageous market position in the industry. The actions of the existing competitors such as Sunway Resorts, A’Famosa, or even Sentosa Island in Singapore will not be a significant threatens to Resort World Berhad indeed.

However, the competition among this industry is steep because of the fast growing of the industry itself. This statement proven by the statistics of tourism, the number of tourists arrived in Malaysia increasing from years 2004 to 2006 and their increasing spending in Malaysia as well. This high growth of industry definitely will extend the penetration rate and provide more opportunities to the industry to gain more market share and margins.

Business Strategy Suggestion Strengths
S1 Exclusive weather condition
S2 Strategic location
S3 Business diversification
S4 Huge capital and stable financial status
S5 Great marketing programs
S6 Strong brand name & image
S7 First-mover in introducing new products(theme park)
S8 Ability to cater high occupancy of room demand
S9 Room diversification
Opportunities
O1 Government effort in promoting tourism Malaysia
O2 Increase number of tourists
O3 Lower currency rate Strengths – Opportunities
S1,S2-O1,O2 Further information of Malaysia tourism marketing strategy on the weather uniqueness of Genting Highland
S5-O3 Offer more competitive packages in the marketing programs internationally
S5,S6-O2 Spread out the good name of Resorts World Berhad to tourist
Threats
T1 Competition rivalry
T2 Global warning issues
T3 New potential entrants
T4 Increasing crime rate in Malaysia Strength – Threat
S1,S2-T1,T3 Stress out the Resort World competitive advantage in terms of weather and location
S4-T2 Build up “Save the World” foundation to increase the awareness of global warning issues.

From the TOWS Matrix built towards Resortss World Berhad, we suggest that further implementation of Malaysia’s tourism marketing strategy should be done with the advantage of opportunity and strengths in the SWOT analysis. The opportunity referred is the government effort in promoting tourism Malaysia, whereby the strengths referred are the exclusive weather and strategic location of Genting Highlands. Our idea is that Malaysia Tourism Board had done a great job in marketing Malaysia throughout the whole in Visit Malaysia 2007, then this good and successful effort should be continue in further extend in order to attract more tourists and visitor to our country. Therefore, Resortss World Berhad should have more communication to the Malaysia Tourism Board in updating the latest news and events that can be one of the major attraction or tourists. This includes the advertisements of the best accommodation hotels at Genting Highland by Resortss World Berhad and the best Outdoor Theme Park in Malaysia. So, the latest updates of the new items and new features no matter from the hotels or from the theme parks can somehow attract the tourists to revisit Genting Highland again. Not to forget, Malaysia Tourism Board should stress more on the weather uniqueness of Genting Highland which it is the big competitive advantage of Resortss World Berhad. Genting Highlands advertisement of the uniqueness weather will constantly being advertised at the targeted countries’ media such as commercial advertisement, travel magazines and websites. So, the ideas and information of Genting Highlands can be channelled directly to the targeted people. For example, the advertisement of Genting Highlands, The City of Entertainment will be constantly seen at Singapore’s television channel is to target the Singapore market.

Next, with the strength of great marketing programmes of Resorts World Berhad when take the advantage of the opportunity lower currency rate of Malaysia, we suggest that Resorts World Berhad may offer more competitive packages in the marketing programmes internationally. Our idea is that, we take advantage of the medium currency rate of Malaysia Ringgit if compare to other neighbourhood countries, then come out with attractive travel packages to Genting Highland. This means that, with only affordable rate or price at Ringgit Malaysia, tourists that come from all over the world would not feel it is expensive. The value of the travel packages will be weighted from the element of the quality stay and entertainment that Genting Highland may offer comparing to the travel packages at the same element by other countries. In examples, if some Asian tourists want to get the feeling of the cool and comfortable weather whilst having great enjoyment of theme park, they may come to Genting Highland instead of Disneyland USA or Japan. Therefore, the competitive and attractive travel packages of Resorts World Berhad towards them will be successful because Genting Highland is able to offer the same excitement that overseas may also do. In the way to implement of this suggestion, the attractive travel packages of Resorts World Berhad will be advertised out no matter using hard copy such as brochures and the liaison with the travel agents of the targeted countries such as Middle East, Indonesia and even Thailand. These travel agents are very important as they are the people who may help in pulling in the tourists of their countries.

Furthermore, the strength of Resorts World Berhad in great marketing programme and strong brand name and image can take the advantage of the opportunity which is the increment number of the tourist. With the collaboration of Malaysia Tourism Board, tourists entered Malaysia for vacation had increased by leaps and bounce. Furthermore, Middle East and China market considered two growing markets as their standard of living had increased, so their ability to come Malaysia for vacation had become high. Genting Highlands and Resorts Worlds Berhad in hotel and theme park entertainment industry had built a very strong brand name and image. Therefore, our suggestion is to spread out this good recognition and reputation out of the world. How? First and foremost, hotels and theme park of Resorts World Berhad must constantly provide the best ever service and experience to every tourists. We suggest that, upon the room check out of the international tourists, they will each being given the redeem coupon that valid on their next visit to Genting Highlands. This redeem coupon is to entitled the benefits such as cash rebates and extra services that affordable by the management. Our idea is that, tourists after had their best and memorable experience at Genting Highlands, they will surely bring back the positive word-of-mouth to the home country. Then, the redeem coupon is to encourage the next visit by them and one more thing would be to ensure the positive word-of-mouth spreaded to the people around them. So with that coupon also, it can be still valid to anybody who brings it to Genting Highlands include the family and friends of the original coupon’s owner. So, this is how we suggest using the existing strong brand name and image to the opportunity seen in the number of tourists.

As the suggestion to counter the threats using strengths of Resorts World Berhad, there are two suggestions made. Firstly, in order to use the strength of exclusive weather condition and Genting Highlands strategic location to avoid the threats of rivalry competition and new potential entrants, we suggest that it is crucial to stress out the Genting Highlands competitive advantage in terms of weather and location. It is because from the rivalry Sunway Lagoon and A’Famosa, these two places do not have as unique weather as Genting Highland has. So, in the marketing programme built, this significant advantage of Genting Highland need to be stress more where is it a place to get the best theme park excitement and best accommodation hotel in a cool weather. Apart of the weather uniqueness, Genting Highland can be seen as having a good and strategic location. It is because it is located at almost middle part of Peninsular Malaysia. Also, it is just less 1 hours and a half of driving away from Kuala Lumpur city centre. Therefore, it is a place that consider near to everywhere. The most important thing is, whenever tourists visit Kuala Lumpur, Genting Highland would never be the place to be missed of because it is very near. As to avoid the threat from new potential entrant which is the Disneyland Nusajaya that may be located at Johor Bahru, Resorts World should again emphasize more on the uniqueness of having the theme park excitement at a cool weather that Disneyland Nusajaya would not able to offer. As Resorts World Berhad is known as an organization that is stable and had huge capital and financial status, it is crucial for this organization to make some contribution to the society. This is to counter the problem of global warming. Well, Genting Highlands is seemed less showing its public conscious towards the environment issues. Then, global warming issues had been the talk of the town since few years ago. Seriously, global warming will be the direct killer to Resorts World’s competitive advantage. If in the future, Resorts World without the cool weather, it will surely make no difference to other competitors. So, we suggest that Resorts World Berhad may build up a “Save the World” Foundation to increase the awareness of global warming. With this step, Resorts World may set up a good name and reputation on the social responsibility towards environment. It is because it shows that this organization would not only keen to gain profit but also care the environment. Furthermore, if Resorts World started to care the global warming issue first, it won’t give any chance of any party to sabotage Resorts World to be one of the major global warming contributor because Genting Highlands does really chop down a lot of trees in its development. Another benefit is to educate the publics on the harm and effect of global warming towards the world and the most important is towards Genting Highlands. If people still unaware with this problem, Genting Highland would never be the same again in 10 years more. Therefore, people would not have a place to have vacation in a cool and breezy weather. In the foundation built, Resorts World may give sponsorships to any parties that put efforts in saving the environment especially towards global warming issues. Therefore one day, whenever people talk about global warming issue, people would think that Resorts World had done its part for the environment and society. As to conclude, with various strengths that Resorts World Berhad has, it has a high ability to take advantage of every opportunity that can bring Resorts World one step ahead. Plus, Resorts World strengths also able to help this organization to counter and avoid every threats that come across. With the strategies produced by TOWS Matrix, it is believed that it could help Resorts World in building stronger brand name and image, also to capture bigger market share in the Hotel and Theme Park industry.

References

Year 2000 (Y2K) Disclosure by Public Listed Companies. (1999).

Resort World Berhad – Annual Report 2006. (2006). Retrieved from www.genting.com.my

http://www.tourism.gov.my/statistic/hotels_occupancy_rates_new.asp

http://www.tourism.gov.my/statistic/hotels_rooms_supply.asp

http://www.tourism.gov.my/tourismbiz/media_centre/statistic.asp

References: Year 2000 (Y2K) Disclosure by Public Listed Companies. (1999). Resort World Berhad – Annual Report 2006. (2006). Retrieved from www.genting.com.my http://www.tourism.gov.my/statistic/hotels_occupancy_rates_new.asp http://www.tourism.gov.my/statistic/hotels_rooms_supply.asp http://www.tourism.gov.my/tourismbiz/media_centre/statistic.asp