Janet McNab | Sheraton & St. Regis Managing Director: ‘Macau is an easy destination’

Janet McNab

Janet McNab took over the position of managing director of Sheraton Grand Macao Hotel and The St. Regis Macao on the Cotai strip eight months ago at a historic time for the Starwood group which owns both properties. In exactly one week’s time on June 27, hotel chain Marriott International will complete the acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in a merger that will form the largest hotel chain in the world.
“I think [the merger] will create huge benefits for both Starwood and Marriot hotels, and a lot of great deals for our customers,” the hospitality executive told the Times in an exclusive interview at the Sheraton.
Ms McNab’s appointment accords with the recently launched policy by the giant hotelier, “Asia Pacific’s Female Talent Roadmap,” which “underscores Starwood’s commitment to gender equality hiring practices, [… ] ultimately to increase female general manager representation globally.”
The policy aims to develop others in Janet McNab’s likeness, who as a seasoned professional in her trade and with a broad experience throughout Asia presented Starwood with many a reason to select her to be the number one representative of the group in Macau; to oversee all of the hotel operations at the 4,001-room Sheraton Grand Macao Hotel – the largest Sheraton worldwide – as well as the 400-room St. Regis Macao.
Australian-born, and of Italian descent, Ms McNab began her career with Starwood Hotels & Resorts 25 years ago out of Brisbane. She has spent more than 13 of those years in Asia, working at properties throughout Thailand, China, Indonesia, and now, since November, Macau.
In the interview Janet showed us the charismatic combination of her upbringing and ancestry. She’s a bicultural individual, “I think and express myself often in Italian [her mother’s side] when it comes to family and food,” she said while switching without a blink from plain English to perfect Italian to exemplify a chat with her mother.
This characteristic should serve her well in the multi-cultural ambience of Macau, which Janet McNab finds “an easy destination” for her profession and responsibilities.

Macau Daily Times (MDT) – You’re telling me that you find this job easier than previous ones. Why?
Janet McNab (JM) – I don’t think exactly that the job is easier; it’s more like the destination is easier.  Nothing is ever easy, but I think living here is lovely.  I like the fact that it’s easy to get around, the traffic is limited.  Food’s great and I like the European influence here a lot.  Having a European background myself, I enjoy that.  I think I’ve had quite a lot of time in SE Asia, so this is a really nice break away from all that.

MDT – What is the main aspect that differentiates Macau from the other places you have been, especially in Southeast Asia?
JM – What’s very interesting is Macau’s got this real international feel, but I also think it’s small enough.  You don’t normally get that in very small environments.  I’ve worked in large cities like Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur; it’s different, they’re big cities. Well, you can’t really classify Macau as a big city, but it’s internationally recognized because of the type of business that it does.

MDT – You’re managing director for both Sheraton and St. Regis and these are part of a larger entity, which is the integrated resort.  Does this give you any kind of constraint or is it beneficial?
JM – I think we’ve got a great owner, and a great owner in so far as that they understand the business. Often, you work for owners that are not hoteliers, so they don’t understand the mechanics of how hotels work. They’re also a good owner in terms of the fact that they spend when they need to spend.  So that’s also very positive, but they also honour the obligations under the management contract.  We’ve obviously entered into a joint agreement with them to run both properties and they respect that.

MDT – So you have your autonomy.
JM – Yes, they respect our brand standards.  The only thing we obviously talk a lot about is capital investment, which you need to, it’s their money you’re investing.  So I don’t find that difficult, in fact it’s very favourable and has to be because Macau being the destination that it is and with the influx of supply, you need to make sure that we’ve got the best products and eventually, once their last hotels opens [The Parisian], there’ll be 13,000 rooms.  Why wouldn’t you want to be part of that?!

MDT – The two properties that you are running are targeting quite different segments, where’s the balance there in managing both?
JM – What you find is that you find the customers always choose the product of their choice.  So a luxury customer will probably not necessarily stay at a Sheraton and a Sheraton customer won’t necessarily stay at St. Regis.  Some of that’s driven by price point and some of that’s just driven by preference and experience. I think the two hotels co-exist very nicely and there are some things that we do that work for both properties like some of our packaging, a lot of our food and beverage promotions, the teams use similar databases, but obviously, different visuals and taglines. Then there are some things which we do separately.  Meetings, for instance we’ve got 21,000 square feet of meeting space.  So that works for both properties. A meeting [organizer] can have their managing director staying at St. Regis, but the rank and file staying at Sheraton, and they’re side by side.

MDT – Speaking of that, what is the occupancy rate these days?
JM – We’re about at market level right across the board for both properties.  We don’t sit above, we don’t sit below, so we’re in line.
MDT – The gaming industry continues to decline, but visitation is still very high.  A bit of a drop in 2015, but is still over 2013 numbers, at 31 million last year.  How do you interpret this?
JM – I think there’s a shift from what Macau was when it started to venture down this new development on the Cotai strip – of course Macau was already existing – to where it is moving now. There is a shift.  So yes, gaming is still part of the reason why people come here, but there is now a whole new portfolio of reasons why people come.  We’re seeing far more families coming to our hotels. There’s far more products that we have to develop to keep the families coming in.  We’ve got Kung Fu Panda launching; the Shrek Festival is coming on.  So there’s lots and lots of stuff for kids to do here.  So I think it’s just indicative of market shifting because in any market, when things start to change, you’ve got to look for new and innovative ways to make a difference to keep your numbers going and I think the family way and entertainment destination has far more sustainability than what just gaming has.

MDT – Do you see that changing here in your properties to more than one-nighters?
JM – It is growing in incremental steps. Yes, it is growing and I think that will only get better as we continue to release more products into the market.  We’ve got to give people a reason to visit us. It’s imperative upon us as operators to keep the interest going and to keep the innovation going.  So yes, it is growing, but in incremental steps.

MDT – A speaker at G2E recently mentioned that integrated resorts are going to be more “resorts with casinos” than the other way around.
JM – Yes, we definitely see ourselves as a resort where families can come in and use the three beautiful pools; they can use all that.  In fact, we were just recently voted as the best leisure hotel by China Travel Weekly and that’s for the second year running. We welcomed our fifth million guest last year.  So I think that shows that there is a recognition of us as a family friendly hotel and our facilities definitely lend themselves to that.