Another Anniversary – Ten years on
Almost two weeks ago, we marked my fifteen years here in Kyrgyzstan. Today, Saturday August 7th, we mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of our hotel, The Silk Road Lodge, here in Bishkek.
Birthdays and Anniversaries are taken very seriously here in Kyrgyzstan. People like to take every opportunity for holding a celebration. When my brother realized that it was fifteen years since I left the UK, he asked if the celebrations were going to stretch over the weekend. “Is it one day of partying for each year?” Now that’s an idea that would go down well here.
Once, for example, I had a meeting with some grand government official and I turned up at the appointed time and place and, as is often the case, was kept waiting in the antechamber. Eventually she emerged from her office full of apologies. It was her birthday, she said and some of her student friends had come, unexpectedly, to congratulate her. “OK. No problem! I understand. I’ll come back another time.” “No, no … come in and join us.”, she said. So I did. We sat round her desk and they swapped stories. There was cake … and vodka …I really don’t like vodka that much, but in honour of the occasion I drank the obligatory toasts and offered my own. When every got up to go, it was already quite late so we agreed to postpone our meeting to the same time the following day. I turned up at the appointed time and place and, as is often the case, was kept waiting in the antechamber. Eventually she emerged from her office full of apologies. It was her birthday, she said and some of her colleagues had come, unexpectedly, to congratulate her. I wasn’t phased by this, even though I thought her birthday was yesterday … “OK. No problem! I understand. I’ll come back another time.” “No, no … come in and join us.”, she said. So I did. We sat round her desk and they swapped stories. There was cake … and vodka …and once again I drank the obligatory toasts and offered my own. When every got up to go, it was already quite late so we agreed to postpone our meeting to the same time the following day. You can probably guess what happened the next day … yes, exactly the same. “Rosa,” I asked, “how many Birthdays do you have?”. “Ian,” she replied, “my birthday is Saturday, but I have lots of friends and can’t see them all on the day itself, so we celebrate it all week.”
To mark my ten years in Kyrgyzstan and the fifth anniversary of the opening of the hotel, (back in 2005), and also the tenth anniversary of the founding of the companies, (in 2007), we organized special celebratory parties. Given the events that have taken place in the country this year, however, we decided that it would be best to avoid any conspicuous displays of excess and to keep any celebrations low key.
So, there will be a cake … a small buffet and some complimentary champagne for guests staying in the hotel tonight … a small certificate and gift for our major corporate clients … a “birthday” dinner and an “anniversary” bonus in this month’s pay packet for the staff – but no parties.
When we opened the hotel, little did I know how it would change my life – and outlook. I had already been here for five years, the tour company had been working for three years and the Guesthouse in Naryn had been open for over two years already and so I knew the country, the people and their various traditions, and … the bureaucracy quite well. Still, there were lots of surprises in store for me.
Shortly after we opened, one of the foreign Presidential Advisors was staying with us. During one of their meetings, the President asked where he was staying and he said, “… the Silk Road Lodge.” That caused a few problems because no-one in the President’s administration knew anything about us … couldn’t tell him where it was located, who the owners were … or anything. I suppose that, as a result, we could have been blamed for poor marketing … but we had told them, Honest!, they were included in the mailing list for the announcement of the hotel’s opening, there had been articles and we did, at that time, run adverts in the local press. Anyway, there followed a flurry of phone calls as they tried to find answers to his questions … and resulted in a Presidential visit.
We then got all sorts of attention.
One of the articles in a local newspaper caused a little problem. The journalists had asked for an interview and their report was headlined, “Three Stars Over Bishkek”. The local standards authority phoned as soon as the article appeared and asked who had awarded us three stars? … only they were authorized to issue stars and they hadn’t … therefore they were going to fine us for misrepresentation. I pointed out that the claim about stars was not our claim, and that they should ask to listen to the tape recording of the interview … in fact, I had spent twenty minutes of the one hour interview explaining to the journalist how the star system worked … or was supposed to work … and that we hadn’t yet applied for any star classification – mainly because some hotels claimed or used “stars” to give potential clients and idea of the facilities they had, not one hotel in Kyrgyzstan at that time had any official star classification. Anyway, as a result we were the first hotel in the country to be awarded one.
Normally in the hotel business it takes between three and five years for a new hotel to establish itself … to get known and create a core base of clients – either guests or corporate clients who send guests. This had certainly been our experience in Naryn and what we were expecting to happen in Bishkek. You can imaging our surprise, then, when we found ourselves running at 80% and 90% occupancy within three months.
The President’s Administration got in touch again … they wanted to know what problems we had experienced and what advice we could give for improving the situation for potential investors interested in opening a business here in Kyrgyzstan. Well, where do you start? We kept it simple and pointed out that whilst it had taken us eighteen months to get all the permissions, it took only eleven months to actually build the hotel. Simplifying the bureaucracy would be a good start. It’s funny that, ten years later, we are still saying the same thing … but also other things as well.
I am often approached by people who are thinking about investing in Kyrgyzstan, or doing business with a Kyrgyz company, or about bidding for a contract in Kyrgyzstan, or … well, you get the idea. Sometimes, someone will turn up at the office and say that so-and-so “has suggested that I talk to you …”. That’s very nice, very complimentary.
I always try to point out that “my opinion” is exactly that – “my opinion” … based on my background, (which is not typical) and my experiences (which are not typical) and so they can only be an indication of issues that need to be taken into account and under consideration. There be many things that I don’t know or issues that I don’t think are that important, but others do, so I advise these visitors that they ought to talk to as wide a circle of people as possible … but most of them do that as a matter of course anyway.
One thing I always try to do is to give concrete examples … anecdotes … to illustrate a point, if I can. On more than one occasion, my visitors have said, “You should write a book about your experiences.” I normally surprise them by saying, “There’s no need, it’s already been done.”
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| http://www.amazon.com/Running-Hotel-Roof-World-Years/dp/1873475934 |
“Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World – Five Years in Tibet” by Alec le Sueur, may well be about his experiences on the management team running the Holiday Inn in Lhasa, Tibet, but so many of the situations he describes seemed so familiar to me when I read it that I felt it could easily have been about running a hotel here in Bishkek.
Added to that, it’s funny and an easy read.
The book was sent to me by a former client from Australia. She had enjoyed it very much and thought I would do so, too. She was right! She told me that the copy she was sending me had already been read by most of her friends … and I have leant it to several people as well, so in order to try and recompense le Sueur for the lost royalties, can I recommend it to you and refer you to the Amazon page where you can buy your own copy.
Things have changed, of course, as time has passed. The Lhasa of today is no longer that which le Sueur knew, and the Bishkek of 2010 is different from that of 199/2000 when we building the hotel. As the situation changes we have to develop and adapt .. I hope we do it successfully.
Bishkek