Outrigger Enterprises Group CEO David Carey is looking to lead his hospitality company far beyond its Hawaiian roots by expanding into regions such as Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The Honolulu-based company acquired the Maldives' Konotta Island Resort this year and this fall said it would delineate about a third of its 42 properties under its new Outrigger Resorts brand in order to better align itself with its specialty of running beachfront resorts. Carey spoke with hotels editor Danny King.
Q: Why make the effort to sub-brand?
A: We've had a heritage of running beachfront resorts since the beginning of the company. Also, we felt the willingness to invest [in the sub-branding] because of the nature of booking a leisure vacation as opposed to a business vacation. [For business,] my assistant is likely to book it, probably with a brand I've already used. Or maybe I book it on my PDA. But if my wife and I are going on vacation, it's a much more complex buy. Is there a restaurant? Are there beach activities nearby? And a lot of our history is delivering that experience, from pretrip to arrival to post-trip, and how we can connect people to activities. And since we've thought about expanding into other destinations, this is how we can distance ourselves from the megabrands.
Q: How do you balance the effort of expanding globally while maintaining a service standard that was built in Hawaii?
A: We spend a lot of time working on that, and we've had pretty good success. We operate under a set of Hawaiian-based values, but when we go into a new destination, we study the peculiarities of that culture and match the values of Hawaii to their culture. One of our core values is flawlessness in delivering the right thing to the right person the right way. But we also recognize the historical significance of a place and say to our employees that they should be proud of their local culture.
Q: What are Outrigger's expansion plans?
A: Right now, we're talking about one to three [new] resorts a year. The immediate areas of concentration are the Pacific and Indian oceans, but we're not ruling out Los Cabos or locations such as Guam or Bali. We're also looking at the Seychelles and possibly Sri Lanka for iconic, aspirational resorts where people want to go.
Q: How's business?
A: Business is stable. Thailand is up and down. Fiji's had a solid year, Australia's up and down and Guam's had a good year. By and large, the center of gravity is Hawaii, and that's been very stable.
Q: How do you compete against larger, global companies and their expansion into the beachfront-resort market?
A: Our advantages are the size of our company and the way we're focusing on delivering an authentic experience. God love Marriott, they have a great book. But by being a little more value-based and employee-culture-centric, we can distinguish ourselves, and we don't have to do it in a cookie-cutter fashion.
Q: You've run the company for more than two decades. How do you continue to keep up with a rapidly changing industry?
A: The answer is primarily to hire the expertise into the company. I look for people who have multicompany experience. My whole Asia-Pacific team has 10-years-plus experience. It's all about bringing in fresh eyes, asking for feedback and figuring out what we may be missing.