Making UHNW hospitality thrive through COVID and beyond - Yeshi Phuntso, Àni Private Resorts

In this episode, we spoke with Yeshi Phuntso, CEO of Àni Private Resorts about how his strategic focus on community engagement and employee empowerment has created a thriving brand. 

Àni is the world’s first private resort collection offering exclusive retreats in the most beautiful and far-flung corners of the earth, ÀNI Private Resorts draws its name from the Swahili word 'andjani', which aptly means the ‘journey ahead’. This refers not only to the time shared by ÀNI guests at each resort as part of life’s journey, but also to the future offered to students of the non-profit ÀNI Art Academies organization. Inspired by the idea that an arts education could bring opportunities to those without in beautiful, developing nations worldwide, the ÀNI story began in 2010, when both organizations were founded by philanthropist and arts patron, Tim Reynolds. 

ÀNI’s destinations currently include Thailand’s Koh Yao Noi Island, Sri Lanka’s south coast, a private peninsula on the Dominican Republic’s north coast, and the northern cliffs of Anguilla Island, with each resort claiming a spectacular natural setting close to its local ÀNI Art Academy. Exclusively designed for a single group of guests, each accommodates up to 20 or 30 individuals across just 10 to 15 suites. All operate on an all-inclusive basis except ÀNI Anguilla, which is available for half-board stays. The resorts offer every space and service a group of guests could possibly desire, and a full complement of staff (between 20 and 30 per resort) tailors every detail – from dining and spa treatments to children’s activities and cultural interactions

Transcript

00:00:00 YESHI PHUNTSO
the result, if our guest goes to work, you will have like three, four, five farmers or fishermen families who will say, come and have tea, please come to our place. And those things I think once you build a community, it's not just guest experiences, not just communities, not just you. The overall impact becomes extremely positive.

00:00:19 NICK LALL
welcome to the INSEAD Emerging Markets Podcast, where we interview business leaders and emerging market experts on business innovations, market opportunities, and macro level trends in emerging and frontier market countries. Join us for the next hour to dive deep into the world of emerging markets, as we speak with top performers who are successfully investing, working, and living in these markets

00:00:43 NICK LALL
INSEAD Emerging Markets Podcast. I'm your host Nick Lall and I'm here today with Yeshi Phuntso. He's the CEO of Ani Private Resorts.

00:00:52 NICK LALL
Aani is the world's first private resort collection offering exclusive retreats in the most beautiful and far-flung corners of the earth. Aani Private Resorts draws its name from the Swahili word on Jani, which aptly means the journey ahead. This refers not only to the time shared by Aani guests that each resort as part of life's journey, but also to the future offered to students of the nonprofit Aani Art Academy's organization.

00:01:15 NICK LALL
Inspired by the idea that an arts education could bring opportunities to those without, in beautiful developing nations worldwide, the Aani story began in 2010, when both organizations were founded by philanthropist and arts patron Tim Reynolds, who previously founded Jane Street Capital. Aani's destinations include Thailand's Kho Yad Noi Island, Sri Lankan South Coast, a private peninsula on the Dominican Republic's North Coast, and the northern cliffs of Angela Island, with each resort claiming a spectacular natural setting close to its local Aani Art Academy. Our guest today is Yeshi Phuntsoo, Yeshi is the CEO of Aani and has been
there since 2016, and he has over 20 years of hospitality experience in some of the top brands and hospitality all across the world, and he's originally from Bhutan. So thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. I'd love to share a little bit more about your own personal journey before we get into the amazing work you're doing there at Aani. Maybe you could just tell me why you initially decided to join Aani and leave the work that you're doing in Singapore, and how you got in touch with Tim Reynolds initially and decided that this is a project that you wanted to take on

00:02:22 YESHI PHUNTSO
for having me on the show, and thank you for the brief, beautiful description about Aani. So I'm from Bhutan myself. I started my work with Aman with a project in Bhutan some 20 years ago. With that job, I was exposed to a lot of pre-opening projects with

00:02:42 YESHI PHUNTSO
one that I did was in Baudrum, Turkey, called Aman Ruyam. From there I moved to Laos to restructure a colonial hotel for two and a half years, and then I moved to Singapore to open a 20 bedroom urban relays. When I

00:02:58 YESHI PHUNTSO
Singapore, surprisingly, I didn't really enjoy the city life. I've been working in naturally beautiful locations with Aman, but also with other companies that I've brought with. But when I arrived in Singapore, which I was excited in the beginning, and I've been interested in a couple of times, and I realized travelling for leisure and travelling for work or living for work is very, very different.

00:03:23 YESHI PHUNTSO
I started looking for other opportunities because I didn't want to hang on with a company there for longer knowing that I'm not enjoying the place, and it's not fair for them either. It wasn't fair for me to force myself to work in a place that I did not enjoy. It's not really truly like Singapore is bad, I think it's just a personal choice that I didn't like the city.

00:03:45 YESHI PHUNTSO
The villa was actually in Labadou Park, so it was really nice, but living in the city, I mean it's not very far from the city and commuting between the cities was not as pleasant as I thought. So one Sunday I just said to myself, look, this is not working, I need to figure out something else, and I spent my afternoon on the laps of, and the same afternoon I found Honey Private Results website, and they were fairly new themselves, so they were not honey-prisoned organised in terms of how to apply a job or where the

00:04:13 YESHI PHUNTSO
addresses was the right person. I managed to get in touch with Honey Private Results, did they interview, we made our choice, I think less than two weeks after the first interview. As part of my first assignment was to come to Thailand and do a bit of re-reopening because it was opened, I think it's four or five months before I arrived, so I had to repress through details, understand brand products from Thailand and moved to Sri Lanka, and that's where Tim came to meet me as part of his holiday, and he told me to spend some

00:04:44 YESHI PHUNTSO
time with me, and he gave me then the direction clearly for the future of un-penny's innovations and desire and inspiration that he has for the company and brand, and he asked me a question how I would fit in, and it was so interesting because you see with a man It's all about attention to details. Small, less is more. Guess is the most important part of the business and you don't let one guest go unhappy or check out unhappy.

00:05:09 YESHI PHUNTSO
But I realized working back then in a month there was also a number of limitations as to what you can really offer and to define the experiences of this one without limitation. With only when I came in, the first that I felt was this is amazing. All these different limitations that I've seen through 12 and a half years with a man I could make it happen here.

00:05:31 YESHI PHUNTSO
Properties are built with high-grade materials integrated with local communities and local resources, expensive living areas. And then the concept of private resort, right? Renting or booking one guest at a time that enables a lot of different possibilities.

00:05:48 YESHI PHUNTSO
And I thought that was the core of innovation. If you have a resort that you can rent out only for a single guest, what you can provide for that single guest staying in the resort is truly one without limitation because you don't need to think about other guests. If you look at other hotels and some of the challenges that I've seen, there's many people at many different preferences, interest, right?

00:06:13 YESHI PHUNTSO
And they have different expectations in terms of what they want in their holiday. And trying to then say we want to customize for every single guest, put attention to details through, it becomes challenging. But then with Arne having just a group in-house at one time, it gives us all these policy measures to ensure we can 100% customize their stay, privacy is 100%.

00:06:35 YESHI PHUNTSO
And when we say customization, we go through food, room amenities, daily services, more touches, watered opportunities for anticipation and we come up with long lists of anticipation of little touches every single day for every guest. So that I won't be able to do it without my prior experience with other results and other brand. And I felt when I arrived, okay, this is my destination and we're going to make it happen.

00:07:02 YESHI PHUNTSO
And I told Tim, look Tim, I have it for life as long as I can work for you. I will be there because this makes me excited and this makes me feel like exactly what I want for my future.

00:03:32 NICK LALL


00:04:28 NICK LALL


00:07:12 NICK LALL


00:07:13 NICK LALL
like it was definitely the right sort of company with the right mission vision for you at the right time from what you wanted to do, which is really amazing that it worked out that way. You've been talking about how what's different about Arne is that you're focusing on one guest at a time. Basically, it's like a private resort for one person.

00:07:32 NICK LALL
does that affect the way that you run the company in terms of how the hotels are built or how training is done? What are the changes that you see in terms of how things are run just based on on having this

00:07:46 YESHI PHUNTSO
model? So our product design is very unique. It's a hybrid between, I think, a villa and a resort. I

00:07:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
hybrid because the results are built like any other five-star resorts. There are a few things that we take into consideration because when you say a group at a time, it could be a multi-jam with grandparents and kids. It could be adults only, it could be a copper retreat.

00:08:11 YESHI PHUNTSO
we're taking into consideration in terms of design as to how we can best fit those markets. And private villa because it's very private. It's yours.

00:08:22 YESHI PHUNTSO
your home for the period that you're booked and that comes with one-to-one guest or staff ratio. And those part of the product design is also how we design in terms of surveys and our employees to cope up with the service standard that we're looking at. Because we also see, see, I mean, anybody can build a beautiful resort and then there are beautiful locations everywhere around the world that are not built at the moment.

00:08:47 YESHI PHUNTSO
brands or a wealthy person can go and build. What differentiates us is how we then look into staffing. How do we treat our employees?

00:08:55 YESHI PHUNTSO
How do we train them? And what kind of training we provide to them? We do less of what is standard hotel operations.

00:09:03 YESHI PHUNTSO
We are breaking that systematic approach of departments like housekeeping, maintenance, front-tafies. Because for our guests, it doesn't really matter whether they are a housekeeper or front-tafies. What they want is a service or their request in fulfilled at a very efficient rate.

00:09:20 YESHI PHUNTSO
we try to look into multi-skilling. See how we can cross between different departments like housekeeping, for example, and maintenance. All of these departments, then of the day, it's very, very similar.

00:09:32 YESHI PHUNTSO
jobs are different. But when you have everybody else being trained with all these different skills, the skills that are required to run different departments or to run a resort, you have a disposable of everybody else who's capable of doing anything regardless of what department. Now, this takes a lot of commitment because it then goes back to how you train, how much do you invest for training, what kind of people do you hire?

00:09:56 YESHI PHUNTSO
So yeah, coming back to your I think the way we operate is very unique. And it works with us because of our concept and because of what is needed in terms of commitment from everyone who is working as part of the Army

00:10:11 NICK LALL
we're quite different and I think... Yeah, definitely. It sounds like you're giving each employee a lot more autonomy. Like they're in charge of not just one role, but they have the decision making ability to do different things and help wherever they're needed. I was wondering, is this something that existed when you first took over in 2016 or is this something that developed over time? How has the approach to training or building other resorts changed over the time that

00:10:35 NICK LALL


00:10:35 YESHI PHUNTSO
concept is there. The start was right, but there was a lot of things to be done when I arrived. And it was very tricky situation, tricky moment there as well, because you're defining who you want to be in the market and you don't want to get that wrong.

00:10:50 YESHI PHUNTSO
Your concept can be one thing, but how you apply those concepts in the market becomes extremely sensitive and important. So I spend almost my first year understanding the concept and then understanding world work and how we would take that concept into the market. Underlining importance as I mentioned earlier, of course, was how do we keep our staff at the level that we wanted to achieve in terms of service and experience for our guests?

00:11:15 YESHI PHUNTSO
So we broke down into a lot of smaller training modules. Very specific for a group of three, maybe group of five, group of six, but we revved as specific as a module for a single employee building the whole development plan and a training plan for each of them. It took time because those are skills, but it's also a knowledge that you need to acquire.

00:11:39 YESHI PHUNTSO
There are many, many different things. So it took almost a year to get everybody up to speed. And today, if you look at, sometimes I get surprised what they are able to create for our guests, but the development is an ongoing plan.

00:11:52 YESHI PHUNTSO
One of our core value we have as a part of the company culture is our employees' development and their wellbeing and happiness because part of the concept is that as much as we have so many guests coming over and staying with us and building those beautiful memories, we want to be absolutely sure everyone who's working with the company are building their own beautiful work experience, but also building up memories.

00:12:19 NICK LALL
I want to go back to that in terms of the memories and the experiences of the staff and the local communities as well. I have one more question about, I guess the revenue side of the hotel before we get to that. Most of your clients, as I understand it, are ultra high net worth individuals.

00:12:34 NICK LALL
I was wondering, first of all, do you do any sort of marketing or how do you attract your clients, where do most of your clients come from? And then secondly, given that these are the sort of clients that you're serving, does that change the way that you train employees at all or is there any different approach to how you run this hotel based on those being the clients that

00:12:55 YESHI PHUNTSO
So marketing, I mean, we do standard marketing like any companies who do, does that bring a lot of business? Yes and no, we're very unique. Our market is niche, like tiny niche.

00:13:10 YESHI PHUNTSO
So, but it's important, I think, our traditional regular marketing happens on the comfortable pace. What is the most important thing that works with us in terms of marketing and in terms of revenue? He is world of marketing.

00:13:24 YESHI PHUNTSO
What we focus is every guest we get, we do everything that is possible to make sure that they have the best experiences in their life. To a point that this is the first thing they want to speak to their friends or their colleagues or their business partners, or to a point they want to come back. And it happens quite often where a guest would book their second stay before they depart from the current holiday.

00:13:50 YESHI PHUNTSO
We have guests returning back as many as five times in a year. And for us, we are a small company. Any Thailand has 10 bedrooms.

00:13:59 YESHI PHUNTSO
Any Sri Lanka has 15 bedrooms. And any Dominican Republic, 14 bedrooms and any Angular, we don't need 10 bedrooms. And then we sell them or we rent those on a single basis, single key basis.

00:14:12 YESHI PHUNTSO
So if you look into the number of calendars and number of results we have, we don't need a lot of bookings or leads. And it will be quite comfortable at the moment with how it's working and how the business, particularly in the marketing and sales side, is shaping up. And I think our focus on change, which is to make sure everyone who is staying at Dhani has the best experience.

00:14:32 YESHI PHUNTSO
And there's no limitation as to what we can offer. And we work together with the team to ensure they have the best. So that's the marketing part. And then sales and part of our

00:14:44 YESHI PHUNTSO
mentioning how staff are able to then cope up with those ultra-high net-road individuals and how does that train work. And I think this is a very good question because that's the most important asset we have for the brand. We in the company from... him himself as owner and me as a CEO, every single person who's working with Ani or working for Ani, we consider them as an important asset. We look into not just the performance side, but

00:15:14 YESHI PHUNTSO
looking to every individual's welfare and happiness and development, because we realize when people are happier, not just at work, but at home, if their life is more comfortable and when they have issues and problems that the company gives a hand to them, you feel your space, you feel this is the right place for you to be. And therefore I think those things gives you the platform, then to train and then to guide them who they can become now and also in future. So when we train, we don't just train just usual standards of housekeeping or

00:15:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
standard FNB service or stuff like that. When we do train, our training modules are based on who our guests are and differentiating like multi-gen family, a family from United States, a family from Middle East, a family from China, because those are our markets. And they may be all out the high net or individuals, but the expectations as to what they expect from the holiday or their preferences and interests are very different.

00:16:21 YESHI PHUNTSO
guests are very, very different from guests from United States. So our training involves training on the culture side of our market, understanding, say Middle East, what do they really like, how do they like to be treated, what are the anticipation we can do, do don'ts, you know, like all this kind of thing, but on top of them, then the service culture, right, we also try to accommodate service cultures based on where they come from. So you need to then train all of them on those service cultures.

00:16:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
There's a fundamental days, FNB training or food training or guest-tradition training, so we break it down into smaller divisions in the department and train the basics as hotels will do, but the larger part is putting the stake on the top and then building up our stuff, like if it's the FNB service team, they should be able to do fine dining service, silver dining services, but then also family being able to create beautiful picnics. So it's an ongoing training because we are also learning a lot from our current guest. I've never seen in my life or

00:17:29 YESHI PHUNTSO
I've never felt or seen myself taking that seriously on guest feedback. I mean our guests' suspactions are really, really high, but then we would also see when the guests are staying, we could have done better because there were other opportunities. We should have seized those opportunities, create a better experience.

00:17:46 YESHI PHUNTSO
guests would say like, our dishes fantastic, but you should probably explore those markets, those areas, and we would knock it down and we would make sure every feedback that we have received and everything that we have learned from A group is being implemented before the next group. So that's how we evolve and we transform ourselves and adapt ourselves. And I think as long as we do that, keep a step ahead of what the expectations are from ultra-high-net or families or individuals coming from different parts of the world, with a size number of results we have, I

00:18:19 YESHI PHUNTSO
we'll be pretty busy

00:16:21 NICK LALL


00:18:21 YESHI PHUNTSO


00:18:21 NICK LALL
yeah. I mean, sounds like it's very time consuming, but it seems also, I mean, in an excellent way to run a hotel and that you're making highly personalized service, which I know will go a long way these days. I think that's a huge difference in factor, which you guys have really hit on. It COVID changed anything in terms of business or how you approach clients or what was the effect of COVID on

00:18:25 NICK LALL


00:18:28 NICK LALL
in an

00:18:49 YESHI PHUNTSO
like anybody else, we got affected in the beginning, for sure. Most of the countries close down their borders. A lot of people are losing jobs, particularly in the industry that we're working in.

00:19:00 YESHI PHUNTSO
And we had in the beginning when the first case, because the first case out from China was in Thailand, and I was based in Thailand at the time. And I remember having a discussion with the team and the colleagues who were working on the other part of the world because in Caribbean, they thought it's never going to come there. That was at least the expectation in the beginning, but I was discussing what we should do for Thailand and Sri Lanka because it's spreading in Asia first.

00:19:27 YESHI PHUNTSO
Again, the differences of working in Annie or Annie as a company or a brand, we decided that this is a moment that matters. We will make sure that everybody has a job, our team,

00:19:41 YESHI PHUNTSO
make sure that everybody gets their salary, their allowances, everything that is there in the contract and everything that has been done in the past year in the result. We will continue doing that regardless of how long it's going to get close. We expected it probably to take by the middle of April, May 2020, we realize it will be... for maybe four couple of years. And even if it is for a couple of years, we will keep our team intact and

00:20:06 YESHI PHUNTSO
take this moment to train them because you have no guests, you have fully staff, they are all paid, they're coming to work. And it was important because depression, mental disease, everywhere in the world was not so nice. And we were lucky because the team is smaller as well.

00:20:22 YESHI PHUNTSO
So I mean, it is a big commitment, but it's also possible when companies is sizeable and then the number of employees working is not as many as something like amount of four seasons. So we kept everybody out there and we did a lot of trainings, we did a lot of surveys as to like, what can we do post COVID in terms of experience, upgrades, development, creations, but at the same time, we did a lot of motivation training, keeping them happy, engaged, so that post COVID or when the border opens, our team are really 100% to

00:20:56 YESHI PHUNTSO
look after the guests. Now COVID did position by the middle of COVID, our brand got really popular, the demand was really high, with the two Caribbean properties there in Angola and Dominican Republic, we had bookings that we did not see in the past, like really back to back. And I realized at that moment, okay, the landscape of the market is changing because of COVID, the expectation from the market is changing because of COVID, and we should be a step ahead of that and make sure that post COVID, we are the first one to adapt to

00:21:33 YESHI PHUNTSO
the need of the market because everybody wanted privacy, private experiences and to end private solution like being able to get in a car in a plane, pick up the car by us and then to the result and they didn't want to do mingle much. And that was what we did in DR in Angola for 2021 and half of 2022. Now the market has changed, right?

00:21:57 YESHI PHUNTSO
In general, I think the demand for market has changed and the operators are of course adapting to it. It was definitely a moment where we got position better and that the private result concept is actually gonna work and may probably become one of the most popular model of business for ultra-high net-watt individuals. And that's when we did a bit of a brand refresh last year, June, to make adapt to more of their need, both on the branding side but also on the service and to the

00:22:29 YESHI PHUNTSO


00:22:30 NICK LALL
Sure, make sense of the sort of business would end up being very in demand for COVID. I

00:22:36 YESHI PHUNTSO
Yeah, I remember, I mean, I don't know, we are in a different industry, but post COVID, people couldn't find stuff like employees because when COVID hit company couldn't keep them because there was no revenue, so a lot of people lost job and we were the first one. We had everybody else and super trained, excited, looking forward to the opening of the borders. And I think it did a lot of our competitors or there was lots and hotels that are in the same locations for some reason I think they thought that was the smartest thing we

00:23:08 YESHI PHUNTSO
did. Definitely. Yeah, we were definitely on top of the game when Boris started

00:23:15 NICK LALL
Yeah, absolutely. I think in several ways your company is showing how taking care of employees actually is a great business decision. So I think it's really amazing to hear that not only did you not let go of anyone during COVID, it's been actually that businessmen have fit for you in terms of having staff that's engaged and wanting to work and so on. It's

00:23:16 YESHI PHUNTSO
in several ways your

00:23:26 NICK LALL
let

00:23:29 NICK LALL


00:23:34 YESHI PHUNTSO
so on. It's probably a good investment, right? I mean, you know, like if you have a brand that you want to make it work and you realize or you know, inside you, the main asset is your team, your employees. And I think then it becomes paramount for any kind of a brand to look after them because without them, I mean, you couldn't brand it, you couldn't call it whether it's a man or a honey or whatever brand it is, right? Because at the end, I think it's people who create the

00:24:03 NICK LALL
Completely agree with

00:24:05 NICK LALL
I guess on that topic now we can get to what you're doing to engage the local communities of the resorts and how those programs came into being and I know you've mentioned the art program and some other training programs. I'd love to learn

00:24:20 NICK LALL


00:24:20 YESHI PHUNTSO
I mean, that's an exciting part. So I'm happy to share with you. Our commitment to be the local communities plus the sustainability is huge.

00:24:30 YESHI PHUNTSO
And to a point that I think Tim and I started to feel that it is almost the purpose of business for us to be able to see the impact we create in the communities drives us to do business well. And then I think when we feel this, then we try to put that feeling down to every single employee who is working in a company. So they feel the same.

00:24:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
And I think if we feel the community is the staff, the guests and us, if in jaw contentment of life and holidays and commitments to the local people and the surrounding people that you live in, I think that there is no better business model than that,

00:25:11 YESHI PHUNTSO
the similar exchange. So when the initial concept was strong and going through with team back in 2016, there was this design of the product, right, which includes the result and how we operate and then employees and then we have the disexperience and then we had the community benefit and how we bring the communities and find ways to help the communities. The Any Art Academies

00:25:37 YESHI PHUNTSO
would I say that? Because it's lunch together with Any Art Academies is lunch together with Any Private Results and during those time when we are looking into the concept and looking into the locations, it was too difficult to really think what is going to work and what kind of community exercises can we

00:25:58 YESHI PHUNTSO
But the fact that art's education is quite universal, it doesn't really have geographies in the region as much as many other different things and my owner, Tim himself, he took the class himself and he felt the progations that you have as a human when you take an art class was something really special. So he said, whenever we build the results, we want to build an art school and it's going to be non-profit art academies, nobody plays anything else, we will take after 50 students in tech of 50 students and the course course between three to

00:26:34 YESHI PHUNTSO
four years depending on the competence of students. And forget about paying for the education, even the sale of their art pieces, they get 100%. We do help in terms of reaching out to market and sell and if you manage to sell, the students actually get 100% of whatever the art pieces we sold for whatever price.

00:26:56 YESHI PHUNTSO
So that we have four locations in Dominican Republic, in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Angola, we also have two other art academies in the US. So this is almost given, if you do a result somewhere else, this gets paired in and it's working perfectly well and there's no reason why we should not imagine something like that, right? In Sri Lanka, down in the South Coast, we're in the middle of the fishermen communities, the life-saving school, basically.

00:27:25 YESHI PHUNTSO
Job opportunities, not much. But if you're able to educate those kids who are dropped out from the school, not knowing what exactly they have for their life and if you're able to educate them and give them the skill, I think in 15 years, 20 years, our expectation is to have a smaller art communities in the location we are because we will see a lot of graduates going out there. They're either going to establish a studio, they will probably work with us because we are also trying to look into the students coming and training them in

00:27:58 YESHI PHUNTSO
other results when they're free and if you need more hand, they would come and help us with and we gave them and they make some pocket money but also they learned something more, right? So our expectation is to see like those communities filled up with more of our theme destinations and if you have beautiful seas, oceans, beaches, resolve and then beautiful culture, I mean wherever we are, I mean, it's sure long by the island, beautiful culture and then you have art thing in the middle, I think it will be a beautiful community and then that

00:28:28 YESHI PHUNTSO
would probably give a lot of possibilities and opportunities for the younger kids that doesn't have a lot of expectation in their life because of lack of education, of lack of skills, therefore lack of opportunities, right? So this is a bigger part that we do in all destinations. We last year actually committed to put $2 million also to renovate and build infrastructures for the local schools.

00:28:54 YESHI PHUNTSO
So we are building in Thailand, half a million north of learning center that has libraries, exhibition halls, computer labs, helping them find teachers who teach programming, coding for the younger kids in the community and that would be the first one because in Thailand doesn't have one, we are doing the same thing in other three locations and we realize they don't have the, they don't have any computer related, internet related courses or infrastructures available. They are also limited resources such as books and computers to access internet, things like that. So we are also providing those access

00:29:30 YESHI PHUNTSO
opportunities so that if there are people who are interested to learn, which I think in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Dominican Republic, I think there are a lot of people who are already applying for those schools just because they know they're going to have those facilities. So we're working on that. We are also very active in the communities because we came in as a newcomer.

00:29:51 YESHI PHUNTSO
We're not part of that community. But it's so essential I think as part of the brand and part of the company culture that we So we understand them better.

00:30:02 YESHI PHUNTSO
part of them. And when we understand them better, then we can come up with programs and initiatives that can best help them, but also provide a larger or more impactful results. So right now we are working in, if you look at Sri Lanka, we are putting together a list of young students who cannot afford to go to schools. They are also students who cannot pay for the occasional training centers, even if they want to go and get

00:30:32 YESHI PHUNTSO
we are working on this. We have 19 students and rolling, I think, on the 15th of this month, in the occasional training center, some are doing funding, some are learning, you know, like, mechanics, a number of things like that. We also do all cultural things together in their celebration.

00:30:50 YESHI PHUNTSO
We are part of the celebration when there's unfortunate incidents in the village. We are also part of that. We support, so, I mean, we feel great.

00:30:59 YESHI PHUNTSO
Every time I go to different locations, it's another home because we know each other quite well and we support each other. So you do feel like you're part of the community and with the staff and employees, I mean, they work together. And that's how the experience for our guests becomes very, very special, because, I mean, no company can bring the village as part of the result.

00:31:21 YESHI PHUNTSO
If our guests go to the work, you will have like three, four, five farmers or fishermen and families who will say, come and have tea, please come to our place.

00:30:44 NICK LALL


00:31:30 YESHI PHUNTSO
those things, I think, once you build that community, it's not just guest experience, it's not just community, it's not just you, the overall impact becomes extremely

00:31:40 YESHI PHUNTSO


00:31:40 NICK LALL
it's amazing. I mean, if we look at a lot of tourism across the world, it can kind of end up being a bit exploitative, but I think this is amazing how much you're incorporating the local communities and actually improving their lives that seems so awesome. It's an awesome vision. Really, glad that you guys are doing that.

00:31:59 NICK LALL
are your plans for the future? Do you have any other locations in mind or any other growth ideas or ideas for how to engage with the community going forward over the next few years?

00:32:05 NICK LALL


00:32:05 YESHI PHUNTSO
or

00:32:10 YESHI PHUNTSO
the future looks very exciting for us, but we know when a rush and starts to making mistakes, it will take a comfortable pace. We are building our second resort in Angula already, due to open end of 2024, a 15-bit room private resort. We realize the demand for

00:32:31 YESHI PHUNTSO
is for a slightly larger group.

00:32:35 YESHI PHUNTSO
the 10-bit room that we have currently is bit small. So we're building another one that is 15-bit room. We also started a construction, just very recently, a 15-bit room private resort in Texan Kikers.

00:32:48 YESHI PHUNTSO
And we have marked a lot of destinations for the future expansion, but as it said earlier, we cannot afford to dilute what we have built, whether it's a guest experience or it's an employee experience, whether it's an ownership experience. I think we'll need to be very, very careful how we expand, where we expand, at what pace. But I see us opening our resort at least one resort every two years at the slower pace and maybe a resort every year at a faster pace.

00:33:19 YESHI PHUNTSO
But it's not just a resort, right? So when you do a resort, you have to understand the communities. Is that location something that we can make a difference?

00:33:29 YESHI PHUNTSO
Is there opportunity to make a difference? Will the art school work? Where should we build the art school? Where the students are going to come in from? Does the sustainability program that we have does that fit in those locations? So we're really looking into all this different spectrum of importance that we have to expand the brand. But we did that bracket, for sure, with a comfortable pace. But I see Arnie growing

00:33:19 NICK LALL


00:33:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
remaining as one of the most unique brand. And when we speak with our employees, when I speak with my owner, when I speak with my colleagues, and down like even filing a rank staff, because it's the inclusive operation everybody has that responsibility. And of course, a precision and reward for all good things based on the performance.

00:34:15 YESHI PHUNTSO
And we try to compensate it's not just like regular structure. I mean, it's based on like, if we are together, the force is working. Of course, whoever is putting the force through our trade well and compensate it well.

00:34:27 YESHI PHUNTSO
So yeah, we, I mean, if you look at all our staffing, 95% are local. We are hired from the local communities. And we don't want to go somewhere out where we cannot find locals and have to import everybody else from outside.

00:34:40 YESHI PHUNTSO
Now, there will be a destination where our market will say like, we want to go there. I'll guess we'll say, oh, you sure you guys should have a resort there and there and there. And if there is a repeated request, of course, even if we have to bring people from outside and build a resort, we will.

00:34:53 YESHI PHUNTSO
But our priority is to make sure that our business is bringing a positive impact. the communities, whether they're employment or through being in the communities and doing community exercises in initiatives and programs or bringing well-dare people there who also then invest in different programs, not necessarily with the result we don't involve guests in our cell, but they would go out and they would find and they would discover and they would say like I wanted to do this and we would facilitate them to do it, but we keep what we do and what guesters like very

00:35:26 YESHI PHUNTSO


00:34:40 NICK LALL
be a

00:35:27 NICK LALL
like you have a lot of great things ahead and sticking to the mission of the company which is great and I'm sure that's what's gotten you the success of the FATSOFAR animal continue to be there so thank you so much for joining and sharing so much about the amazing work you're doing. I can't wait to see what else you end up doing.

00:35:46 YESHI PHUNTSO
you, Nene. I'm happy that I'm on your show. We don't speak much about what we do and we try, I mean I think it's important we speak as I get a word out in the market so people see what other people are doing, but at the same time we are a humble company.

00:36:02 YESHI PHUNTSO
not to prove anybody else that we're doing this and they should do that. For us it's what we believe and when we're able to deliver what we believe it brings happiness for our guests, for our owner, for everyone who's working for the company and that is what is the most important. So we speak very less.

00:36:22 YESHI PHUNTSO
don't really do too much of PRs and over the period of last six, seven months after we rebranded, I got a lot of people like magazines and things like that. They do want to, you know, like advertise, do want to do these, do want to put it in the magazines and I try to be very, very careful. I mean I'm doing this with you because I'm not doing this as part of a marketing campaign or things like that. I

00:36:47 YESHI PHUNTSO
it's a sincere discussion about what we do and I thought this platform is something that makes me feel comfortable because otherwise as a small humble company we focus more on like what is good for our guests, for our communities, for our staff and our ownership and then as long as we have this synergy between ourselves and see what is happening it brings us content and the happiness and drive us further more to see like what we can do more to the communities around the world and what kind of experience we can explore and destination we

00:37:21 YESHI PHUNTSO
can explore for our guests