Pan Pacific Hotels Group raises the stakes in Asian hospitality

CHOE PENG SUM IS TALKING about babies. Not the bawling kind, but his candid assessment of where Pan Pacific Hotels Group (PPHG) stands among the more established names in the global hospitality industry. 

“We’re a baby compared to all the big boys like JW Marriott, InterContinental and Accor,” says the chief executive officer, who took the helm of the Singapore-based group in 2019. But in just seven years, that baby has grown into a force to be reckoned with. The group now has 53 hotels in its portfolio, with more to come. 

“We want it to grow even further,” says Choe, a veteran hotelier who has been in the industry for more than 30 years. “We’re targeting at least eight new properties a year, if not more.”

It may still be small, but PPHG has shown it can punch above its weight as “an unashamedly Asian brand, delivering distinctive, graceful luxury and service from the heart”.

Growing the brand

“Asian graceful luxury” and “service from the heart” are not pithy platitudes but the very foundation of the culture that Choe has strived to instill in PPHG, in tandem with the hard numbers needed to build the business.

With just three hotel brands – Pan Pacific, PARKROYAL COLLECTION and PARKROYAL – PPHG is up against international giants housing multiple names. But Choe is unfazed, as being niche with strong differentiation has helped them target their market segments more effectively.

“Our approach has been to position Pan Pacific as the place for five-star Asian luxury; PARKROYAL COLLECTION (as sustainability-focused); and PARKROYAL as a four-star, casual social-local product,” he says of each brand’s identity.

And this has paid off. “To push through the concept, we had to have a product commensurate with it,” says Choe. That philosophy drove what he calls “Pan Pacific Version 2”, starting with Pan Pacific London – a Yabu Pushelberg-designed property that within five months of opening was awarded the coveted Forbes five-star distinction for hotels.

This was a feat, considering major chains can take up to five years to earn such a ranking. He chalks it up to the hotel’s winning design, service and hand-picked team. 

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“We were late to the game in London – all the big boys were (already) there. But when we came in with our focus, it made all the difference. We made it known that we’re from Asia and we just want to serve from the heart.” 

The icing on the cake: its general manager, Anne Golden, was also named the UK’s hotelier of the year at the 2026 Hotel Magazine Awards.

“Version 2” continued with new properties in Jakarta, Tokyo and Singapore’s award-winning Pan Pacific Orchard. This was followed by asset enhancement initiatives to refurbish existing properties such as Pan Pacific Singapore, PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay and more in Australia.

The success with Pan Pacific London also led to partnerships with luxury travel platforms such as Virtuoso and American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, and consistently high ratings on sites such as Booking.com which place PPHG properties at the same or even higher level than major international names.

Building a culture

When Choe isn’t talking about babies, he’s talking about people. “We believe in Asian graceful luxury, we believe in sustainability, but what does it mean to all of us, in the way we treat each other?”

To practise what they preached, there had to be a company culture that was people-centric – an environment that opened lines of communication and encouraged staff to be engaged and empowered. 

But it wasn’t always like that. Choe recalls incidents such as a high attrition rate in a particular restaurant, and engagement scores that showed a large group of “moderately disengaged” staff – that is, those who were indifferent about their jobs and did only the bare minimum. 

In the end, it turned out that the restaurant staff were quitting because of an abusive head chef, who was ultimately replaced. Thankfully, the attrition rate fell. As for the “moderately disengaged” staff, the percentage dropped from 20 per cent to 5 per cent as more outreach efforts were made. “A lot of the time, it’s about simple communication,” says Choe. 

Creating a dream team

After seven years of repositioning the business, streamlining internal processes and tracking PPHG’s progress through a series of scorecards measuring everything from financial performance to branding, guest experience and staff engagement, the group is now poised for its next stage of growth, says Choe.

While management gurus talk about a bottom-up approach, he feels that when it comes to vision and a common direction, it has to come from the top. “People will look at you and ask if you believe in this. We have to walk the talk, because it’s very sickening when bosses paint a nice picture-perfect vision but they don’t believe in it.”

For the task, he has assembled a dream team of leaders who do believe in a common vision. They are all experts in their various fields, spanning operations, business development, finance, marketing, recruitment and sustainability.

The shared thread is a people-centric approach, but with the capacity to make tough decisions. “You can drive change by destroying – screaming, shouting and enforcing,” he notes. “But you can also drive change by motivating, encouraging and rewarding. I prefer this way.”

He has found the right balance of compassion and toughness in Craig Bond, his newly appointed chief operating officer who oversees global operations. “Craig believes in people,” says Choe. “For example, we had a hotel manager in PARKROYAL Parramatta. We cluster our properties in Australia so we have a group general manager, but Craig felt he was performing at the level of a general manager and so we promoted him.

“To do something like that, you need someone who is interested in people. But it doesn’t mean you can’t make hard decisions. We’ve changed general managers who don’t believe in our culture. Craig is people-oriented and operationally sound, so he brings that extra thrust.”

Also on the team is Celine Du, chief commercial and marketing officer, who joined PPHG after a career at Mandarin Oriental. “She understands the luxury Chinese market, which we are trying to grow,” says Choe.

“Our key growth opportunity goes beyond traditional corporate and group business,” says Du. “There’s very strong momentum in luxury leisure, driven by lifestyle trends in China and the current geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East.”

Beefing up the team are Kate Loh (head of development), Valerie Foo (senior vice-president of finance), Andreas Sungaimin (senior vice-president of people and culture) and Wee Wei Ling (executive director of sustainability partnerships, lifestyle and asset).

“It’s a very strong team now, but at the end of it all, it’s all about the people,” says Choe. “We need to change and grow, we need to push. 

“As an Asian-based hotel, we can truly demonstrate Asian graceful luxury that comes from the heart. We don’t have glitzy chandeliers – although we have some beautiful artwork ourselves – but we have the people. And that’s what really matters.”

Photography: Darren Gabriel Leow Fashion direction: CK Grooming: Grego Oh, using Hermes Beauty and Revlon Professional  Location: Pan Pacific Orchard