{"id":289496,"date":"2018-11-30T06:10:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T20:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=289496"},"modified":"2018-11-30T06:10:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T20:10:46","slug":"hyatts-biggest-impact-making-the-marianas-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/hyatts-biggest-impact-making-the-marianas-known\/","title":{"rendered":"Hyatt\u2019s biggest impact: Making the Marianas known"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hyatt Regency Saipan general manager Nick NIshikawa and director for Human Resources Josephine Mesta. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hyatt Regency, an international brand, first set foot on Saipan in 1980. Thirty-eight years later, the hotel has helped the Marianas become more known in the Asia-Pacific region and throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Today, there are about a hundred hotels in the region\u2014all of that built in just a span for 40 years.<\/p>\n

According to Hyatt general manager Nick Nishikawa, Hyatt Regency Saipan \u201chas experienced many things in the CNMI for the past 38 years. We were there with the ups and downs. We are tough and still working to be better.\u201d <\/p>\n

That is part of the over-arching goal\u2014to make the Hyatt brand be the preferred brand in every destination.<\/p>\n

Josephine Mesta, director of Human Resource at Hyatt, who boasts of 25 years of service at Hyatt Regency Saipan, said as much. \u201cThey wanted Hyatt to be the preferred brand in every destination. I know this because this was part of my orientation 25 years ago,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they were very progressive, even visionaries, because they saw the potential of the Marianas. Back then\u2026Hyatt had this vision that they can take this hotel here, manage it, and take it to where it is today\u2026so it\u2019s kind of like Hyatt put us in the map, in the globe, because when you take a look or search for Hyatt, Hyatt Saipan is there,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Rooted in authenticity<\/strong>
\nMesta believes that one of Hyatt\u2019s secrets for lasting this long is its \u201cauthenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that we are sincere in what we do. Many people come to me and say that it looks like the typhoon didn\u2019t touch Hyatt compared to other hotels and I say to them this is because we have a team that performs its best at the worst time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know how take care of people and I believe that is the key to our success. It\u2019s really our people, the management, [and our] customers\u2014everyone is involved in making this business successful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Typhoon Yutu responder<\/strong>
\nMany residents took refuge at the Hyatt Regency Saipan before and after the typhoon. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned a lot from [Typhoon] Soudelor as, after the typhoon, people came to the hotel looking for power outlets to charge their phones, cook their food and we closed our eyes and let them do it. After Yutu, we were prepared for our guests and the community,\u201d Nishikawa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a generator and our own water system. The day after the typhoon, we were on top of things. \u2026Our focus was to support the community and help recover as we housed many of the international responders. \u2026We put up a charging station [and] we bought washing machines right after the typhoon because we know many people wanted to wash clothes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

While employees were taking care of Hyatt\u2019s guests, the management also made sure that the employees were comfortable as well, Mesta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provided shelter for our staff and their families who were affected by the typhoon. We have them stay in-house and opened up other rooms so their families can come and shower,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Employment<\/strong>
\nMesta highlighted the high number of U.S. citizen employees at Hyatt. \u201cWe have 253 employees composed of 90-some percent U.S. citizens. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe currently have about 30 percent of employees who have been with us for the past 15-20 years. \u2026We have one or two key people that have been here since the beginning of Hyatt 38 years ago and they are now in their 80s and still working because they don\u2019t want to quit,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Nishikawa attributes their employees\u2019 loyalty to the way they train, guide and shape the employees. He said Hyatt Saipan is a good training ground, with some employees who have moved to the mainland whose first choice of work is at the Hyatt. And it\u2019s not just the rank and file. \u201cWe are a training ground for a lot of Hyatt general managers. \u2026That\u2019s our contribution to Hyatt International. Everybody is tasked to prepare and groom future Hyatt executives and they come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boosting CNMI\u2019s tourism industry<\/strong>
\nHyatt hotels operates like a \u201ctourism agent\u201d for one another, according to Nishikawa. <\/p>\n

With 700 hotels all over the world, each hotel is an agent, he said. Each hotel has its own customers and if these customers want to travel to the Pacific, they usually recommend the Hyatt Regency Saipan. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything at Hyatt is connected like a chain. \u2026For the CNMI, where tourism is the only industry on the island, those connections are very important,\u201d said Nishikawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople all over the world trust the Hyatt brand\u2026I think the name of the hotel is very important to a traveler; they feel safe because they are used to a certain standard and they expect that standard every time and we give it to them,\u201d he added Mesta understands how a traveler\u2019s mind works. \u201cI don\u2019t think someone in Kentucky who wants to visit an island somewhere far will look for an unknown hotel brand. \u2026For people who stay at the Hyatt, they use Hyatt to dictate their destination in a specific region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a captured market right away and that is one of our biggest contribution in this community,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Its future<\/strong>
\nWith a land lease bill still pending at the CNMI Senate, Hyatt Regency Saipan is operating on the last three years left on its contract. \u201cWe want to be around for another 38 years and that\u2019s basically our challenge right now,\u201d Mesta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been a big part of this community. \u2026We are involved in\u2026schools, the Marianas Visitors Authority and Saipan Chamber of Commerce boards, helping the government as advisers, we help raise funds and donations and that makes us engaged\u2026we raise the bar so others will follow,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Nishikawa said the owners of Hyatt Regency Saipan wants to continue doing business on island. \u201cThey said that they are eager to make the necessary renovations in the hotel, to be in line with the make and design of other Hyatt hotels in the world but everything is on a standstill because, with only three years left on our lease, we are made to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we get the lease extension, we want to do renovations. \u2026This hotel is the same as 38 years ago\u2026We definitely want to renovate rooms to meet the Hyatt standard.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hyatt\u2019s priority <\/strong>
\nAfter a monthlong hiatus, tourists have started to return to Saipan and Hyatt is ready for them. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are ready, with open the doors and for them to enjoy the islands\u2026If there\u2019s anything we can do for the community, that is to keep the Marianas in the face of the world,\u201d Mesta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we ask community to keep that alive, to safekeep, nourish and promote the Marianas so the international world will keep us in their map of destinations\u2026We have to work together to keep the Marianas in somebody\u2019s vocabulary,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Nishikawa said it is important to keep the Hyatt name on this island. \u201cOtherwise everybody leaves\u2014tourists, investors, business and eventually the economy\u2026 Investors come to the island and stay at the Hyatt. They talk to me, ask about the island and I always say Saipan is a very nice place for their business. It is the ideal island for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hyatt Regency, an international brand, first set foot on Saipan in 1980. Thirty-eight years later,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":289497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[56,233,14508,67],"class_list":["post-289496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-business-3","tag-hyatt-regency-saipan","tag-hyatt-saipan","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}