Betty Sy on dad Henry Sy & RP drawing 10 million tourists

The Henry Sy family has cast another vote of confidence in the future of the Philippine economy with their P6.5 billion, 347-room Conrad Manila as SM Group’s first international luxury hotel venture. Located at the forefront of the booming Mall of Asia complex within the 42-hectare Bay City shopping, leisure and business hub, this cruise ship-inspired hotel overlooks scenic Manila Bay.

Leading the June 15 soft-opening ceremony were Sy family matriarch Felicidad Tan Sy, SM Prime Holdings chairman Hans Sy, Hilton Worldwide Asia Pacific president Martin Rinck, SM Hotels & Convention Corp. president (SHCC) senior vice president for operations Ma. Luisa Angeles, Conrad Manila general manager Harald Feurstein, Hilton Singapore general manager Peter Webster, and SM Hotels & Convention Corp. president Elizabeth Sy who gave the Philippine STAR an exclusive interview at the Brasserie on 3 restaurant.

Here are excerpts:

PHILIPPINE STAR: You’re in charge of your family’s growing tourism enterprises like this new Conrad Manila, plus your Taal Vista Hotel, Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu, Pico Sands Hotel in Hamilo Coast, Park Inn by Radisson in Davao and Park Inn in Clark, Pampanga. For your father Henry Sy, Sr., it seems he has no preference for having sons run your businesses over daughters, unlike in most East Asian families?     

ELIZABETH “BETTY” SY: Our father looks at all of his children as equals, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a boy or a girl; look at our elder sister Tessie. Our father doesn’t have this traditional preference for sons because he’s forward-looking.

Since it’s Father’s Day, tell us how Henry Sy is as a father?

He is a loving and caring father. When we were kids, he was very busy and still building up his business, so he was not always with us but the attention was there.

As a family man, Daddy is most reticent and prefers to show he cares for us in indirect ways. Every Sunday, he would go to the seaside market to buy the choicest catch of fish, shells and crabs and cook lunch for the entire family. Sunday lunch was also story time, both business and personal, whichever one was more crucial.

One time, he related to us, in the early 1950s, how disappointed he felt when a soldier entered his store in downtown Manila and bought a pair of shoes without haggling over the price. He felt bad for the man knowing that the shoes were a tad overpriced to accommodate the haggling custom that was prevalent then in retail operations. From that time on, he introduced the “fixed price” policy so he could be fair to everyone. In all his businesses Daddy’s guiding philosophy always has consumer comfort and satisfaction as the end goal — a direction and policy that still guides everyone in SM today.

How did your dad discipline you, Tessie, Hans and others as kids? Did he spank you?

Not by spanking, but by glaring at you and we already knew.

Can you share some of your father’s advice on life and business?

Be fair to everybody. He also said that if you have an opponent, no matter what, give your opponent an escape route. Also, for our father, integrity is very important, so we have to uphold integrity in anything that we do.

How did your father train you and your siblings to be his successors?

He made us aware early on that we have to be part of the family business. He made us help in the stores even when we were kids after school hours. I was then 10 or 11 years old when I was already going to the stores to help out.

And Daddy did not impose anything on us that he himself could not do. For decades, he would spend several evenings each week in the former buying office in Echague, inspecting each and every pair of shoe samples. That’s how we all became buyers and merchandisers even at an early age. To this day, each one of us is a buyer and merchandiser at heart.

How were your Christmas holidays then, when those were peak seasons in your business?

In our growing years, we could only long for the simple joy of family outings or summer vacations, a luxury the family could not afford. “Who will mind the store?” my father would ask. And so our remembrance of holidays, which happen to be the busiest times in the retail industry, had the entire family stationed at the Makati store, working alongside our mom and helping out wherever help was needed, and simply dining together afterwards. A personal, hands-on approach to business has always been my father’s philosophy.

Can you describe to us what you think are the success secrets of your father Henry Sy?

Hard work, unrelenting dedication to the business, and the boldness to venture into something new is Daddy’s ethic and worldview that permeated all our lives since as far back as I can remember. He has this passion to innovate, to change the rules midstream when necessary and the relentless drive to make the dream even bigger.

Did your father have any favorite child?

Our father had no favorites, I don’t think so. He’s fair to each and every one of us, that’s why all six of us siblings have a good relationship with each other.

Did he impose high standards, like in academics or other fields?

He has a lot of expectations. But in school, there was no need for us to be first or second honors. He always advised us, in the Hokkien dialect, “tio eh hiaw chue lang” (to be a good person).

How did your father assign you to SM Group’s tourism businesses?

He saw that I enjoyed hotel work. I used to work for his first hotel business, the Manila Royal Hotel with a revolving restaurant on top, which was located on Echague St. (now Carlos Palanca Sr. St.) in Quiapo, Manila. He built it in 1974, there was an SM Department Store underneath it, and I worked there as his assistant.

Your father told me years ago that he is bullish on Philippine tourism.

He has always loved the tourism industry. He believes the Philippines can achieve prosperity with tourism. We’re blessed with so many natural resources. We have the comparative advantage of English fluency, good tropical climate, abundance of tourism attractions.

What are your hopes for the Philippines under President-elect Rody Duterte?

We hope he can build up our Philippine tourism industry as one way to really uplift the lives of the people nationwide. Tourism will grow even faster if we can have new, better airports and infrastructures, and better efficiency. On peace and order, I think if criminality goes down, this will also boost our tourism even more.

What are your hopes or projections for Philippine tourism?

This year, projected tourist arrivals will be six million. I hope that we can welcome at least 10 million tourists in the next two to three years.

How many more hotels will your SM Group plan to open in the next few years and where?

We now have six hotels. In the next two years, we plan to have 12 hotels. We like to build hotels beside SM malls, because there’s synergy. For a lot of overseas Filipino workers and their foreign families or relatives, staying at our hotels beside the malls would offer convenience.

By the way, how many artworks do you have all over Conrad Manila? I heard you got former Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) president Nestor Jardin as consultant?

It is the standard of Conrad Hotels to have artworks. In the case of our Conrad Manila project, I have asked Hilton Worldwide a request that, for this property, we could showcase contemporary Filipino artists. So in Conrad Manila’s art collection, we have 635 paintings, sculptures, decorative art and 3D art. Yes, Nestor Jardin is our project director. 

Do you have time for any hobbies? How do you relax?

I love cooking, baking. I do yoga. I’m not a vegetarian, but I tend to eat less meat.

Speaking of yoga, what do you think of spas complementing the Philippine tourism boom?

Yes, I have been to many Asian countries, I think Philippine spas have a great growth potential if we can do it better. I believe our distinct advantage is our English language fluency. I’ve tried some ASEAN countries’ high-end spas, their disadvantage is lack of English language skills. Here in the Philippines, if we can develop more spas for tourism by combining our English advantage with our local service culture, then we can attract more tourists.

You are Iceland’s Honorary Consul to the Philippines. How many times have you been there and what can we learn from that country?

I have visited twice. Iceland is a good tourism place, we can learn from their being an environmentally conscious place. It is successful in renewable energy, like geothermal energy.

What are the top three hotels in the world that you’ve been to and admire the most?

That is an interesting question, because I am quite critical. First, One Aldwych Hotel in London. Second is The Peninsula Tokyo. Third is The Charles Hotel in Munich, Germany.

What about top three resorts you admire in the world?

 (Laughs) I have no time to go to resorts, no time for that kind of relaxation.

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