By Herbert Laubichler-Pichler
Managing Director, Alma Resort
This month, the resort I’ve managed since 2019 has been called out by Travel + Leisure magazine in the United States as the #1 Resort in Southeast Asia, the #2 Resort in Asia and the #9 Resort in the world. Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler are the two top travel magazines in the United States.
There is not a hotel in the world that does not pay attention to these awards. They confer a legitimacy of product that you cannot buy. Winning what we won this year is like winning an Oscar.
So, how did we get here? There are so many reasons that have to do with the product itself, the ownership, the guests and, so I’m told, the management. But for the purposes of this space, I’m going to trumpet the importance of PR, and the agency — the Balcony Media Group — that launched us into the media-sphere.
If it wasn’t for Balcony, if we didn’t have such good representation, we’d never have made it. In the totality of it all – it’s like really amazing team work — everything comes together.
You have to be constantly telling your story. So many resorts do not understand this. They think, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.
You have to be constantly pushing, constantly getting the word out. The moment you stop pushing is the moment the locomotive stops. If you stop pushing the locomotive for a long time, it comes to a standstill. You cannot push the locomotive out of the train station without an enormous expenditure of energy.
If you count the years I’ve been with Balcony, two years at the award-winning Nam Hai, two at the award-winning Anam, two at the award-winning Reverie Saigon, and now five at Alma, it’s almost like Balcony is a part of my personality, of my success.
I push them hard. I know this. And they respond. I work hard. And they work hard. The harder you work, the luckier you get. This month, we came into more luck than we have ever had before. Of course, we will be looking for more luck next year!
— In June, Herbert Laubichler-Pichler was recognized as “Vietnam’s Best General Manager” in the Travel + Leisure Luxury Awards Asia Pacific 2024.
