Family-run hospitality business Amora Hotels and Resorts is gearing up for growth with plans to double its network to 12 properties within the next five years.
Following in the footsteps of his father, who founded the business in 1997 with the launch of its Melbourne property, Earp Siriphatrawan is leading Amora’s expansion as owner and director, with his eyes firmly on Australia and Thailand.
A former investment banker, Earp inherited the business over 10 years ago when his father passed and took on a leadership role during the Covid pandemic, when challenges plagued the hospitality industry.
“I had studied economics, and my career was in investment banking – nothing to do with hotels,” Earp told HM.
“I always had an attachment to hotels because I grew up in the Melbourne property. I would do all sorts of jobs that kids were allowed to do. I knew how hotels worked, but I never took hotel management courses or anything like that.
“But when Covid hit, I had to come back to the family business to continue that legacy that my father had built.
“It was a very tough time. We needed to reinvent ourselves. The strong survive, people had to innovate. To me, desperation brings innovation.”
Amora reexamined every aspect of the business, from its meetings and events offering to accommodation and food and beverage. During that time, the business acquired its first property in Brisbane, which opened in December 2023.
Earp, his two sisters, Eye and Chatkaew, and his mother Amornrat – who Amora is named after – are all involved in various aspects of the business.
With Earp based in Bangkok the corporate office in Sydney is led by Vice President of Operations, Tamer Habib, with Group Director for Commercial and Business Development, Narej Farik, focused on expansion.
Expansion plans
From those roots in Richmond, Amora has added a further five hotels, in Sydney, Brisbane, Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai.
“Our plan is to expand to 12 – doubling the portfolio within five years,” Earp said.
“I think Australia is quite a stable market, in fact, because a lot of the demand is domestic, from Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne. Thailand is more lucrative because of the numbers of international tourists, so the yield there is typically higher.”
The owner-operator is looking to plant flags in key cities including Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne CBD, Auckland and Bangkok, to name a few.
“My goal is to consolidate the Amora brand. To do that, I believe we need to own and operate each hotel, so I have the full line from top to bottom,” Earp said.
“If we started to do hotel management agreements (HMAs) today, we just don’t have enough scale and so we might dilute the brand. Our plan is to acquire, own and operate it as our own brand first.”
While Amora hotels have mostly catered to corporates, its strategy has been revised to target more leisure guests and Earp hasn’t ruled out adding more resorts to the portfolio.
Despite high interest rates, Earp sees it as an opportune time to buy hotels.
“It’s no secret that the interest rates are pretty high, and that has put pressure on consumer spending,” he said.
“A lot of hotels are seeing a dip in revenue and profitability because payroll is higher. For a buyer, that’s very good. I’ll get an attractive price, and we can expand faster.
“I think there are more hotels coming to the market but, if you look at the data, I think transactions are low because there are not a lot of buyers. Not a lot of people can afford the cost of funding at the current RBA rates.
“We have a set of funds, and we want to deploy them the right way.”
Family values
Personalised service is a key part of the Amora brad proposition, which is helped by its long-standing team members, some of which have been with the business since that first property.
Earp says the culture of family values has played an important role in retaining staff members.
“Once that culture of family values is built, they tend to stay,” he said.
“We pay them fairly, they feel like they can talk to anyone in the company, and they can move up within the business. We are very transparent as well. The family is the decision maker and we communicate our strategy and our plans with the rest of the team.
“Many of them saw me growing up in the Melbourne hotel, so they know who I am, and they don’t expect me to lie to them or treat them badly.
“When you treat your staff like a family, all I ask in return is that they treat the guest as an esteemed family member as well.”