Tune hits the right notes with 1m guests, 100 hotels by 2015

It’s a huge achievement for a chain, which pioneered the “limited service concept” of providing “a 5-star sleeping experience at a 1-star price”, promising high quality accommodation with the basic essentials.

Picture clockwise from left:  Tune Hotels London, Downtown Kuala Lumpur, Kuta Bali

Like its sister company AirAsia, Tune Hotels went against the norm with this concept, enabling travellers to stay in one of its hotels for as low as RM9 (US3) during special promotions. 

To endear itself further to customers, Tune Hotels also eliminated the RM10.90 administration fee for room reservations across all of its hotels last month. At the same time, it launched a bundle called the “Comfort Package”, which includes 12 energy-saving hours of air-conditioning, towels and bathroom amenities that provides guests a savings of 20% compared to stand-alone services.

All these strategies are contributing to Tune Hotels’ success and popularity, not only with budget travellers but with some business people too. On any given day Tune Hotels enjoy a 95% occupancy rate, which few hotels can claim to have.

Mark Lankester (pictured left), Tune Hotels’ group CEO, is very upbeat on the group’s expansion. “2011 onwards really will find us beginning to get into our stride and we’ll be reaching into new markets that we’ve never reached before.”

In January it opened two hotels in Malaysia – the 173-room Tune Hotel Kota Bharu, Kelantan and the 101-room Tune Hotel Bintulu, Sarawak – increasing the chain’s portfolio to 12 hotels.

Nine properties in Malaysia are located in Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, KLIA-LCCT Airport, Penang, Johor Bahru, Kota Damansara, Bintulu and Kota Bharu. The remaining three are in Kuta and Legian in Bali, Indonesia and one in London.

With the opening of the Kota Bahru hotel, Tune Hotels has planted its flag in all regions of the country.

“Tune Hotels’ framework in our home country of Malaysia is now complete as we cover the central, northern, southern, eastern and western parts of the country and now that this is done we can rapidly move to fill in the spaces,” said Lankester.

The group is aiming for 100 hotels, in operations and in development, by 2015 in key cities in the UK, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Middle East. These could be acquired either through strategic partnership with local operators or as franchises.

Tune Hotels has been encouraged by its foray into the competitive London market. It opened its first hotel, Tune Hotel Westminster at 118 Westminster Bridge Road, in late August 2010 after extensive renovations to a converted office building. Its “limited service concept” is so popular that the hotel has been enjoying almost 100% occupancy since its opening.

Pictured right:  Double room in Tune Hotel Kota Bahru

According to Lankester, on the drawing board are two to three other sites in London for future properties. Future plans include expanding to the northern parts of UK, specifically to Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland.

At the rate Tune Hotels is winging globally, Lankester’s wish of welcoming the next one million guests to its properties may just become a reality very soon.

* Photos courtesy of Tune Hotels