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Liu Rui
Design and Engineering Department, IHG Greater China Support Center

Although I had accumulated a wealth of architectural design experience before coming to IHG, I quickly had to adapt and switch from being just a designer to one that was taking brand management into account.

The design of an entire hotel not only involves the architectural design, but also includes lighting design, catering and kitchen design, electrical and mechanical reconstruction, duct laying, and even energy saving which I did not have any past experience in. All this requires a high level of understanding and capability.
In order to give myself and my team a fuller understanding of the hotel's operations, we launched a "Hotel immersion" project in our department. In this project, we designated a single department of a hotel to visit and learn.  Not only did we understand and experience from the front end perspective of the consumer, but also the workflow and operation rules of the entire department from the back end.

 

 

We followed the catering department to learn about the work of restaurants, back-cookers, and even joined their evening shifts. When I experienced the housekeeping department, I would clean the room with the room service staff. It is from this experience that I found that hotel liked to use a lot of mirrors and shiny metal elements, which actually causes a lot of inconvenience to our cleaning staff. After experiencing the work of various departments in the hotel, I am more confident in the design standards of each department.

After more than half a year, I have adapted well to my new role. On the basis of hotel brand management, I am seeking more global experience and learning. I have completed my studies in hotel management, and my next plan is to study a course in leadership.