The Henry Hotel’s Lee explaining the success of the boutique hotel

MANILA, Philippines – Usually having anywhere between 10 and 100 rooms, so-called boutique hotels are steadily on the rise in a rapidly shrinking world of frequent flier miles, budget airlines, and Airbnb. People are logging more miles of travel than ever in history, and are presumably looking for more than just cookie-cutter experiences even as they save on pesos.

“Filipinos in general are very adventurous people. We love to travel,” asserts Henry “Hanky” Lee III to The STAR in an exclusive interview. “A Department of Tourism statistics actually shocked me. About 100 million Filipinos – among them 50 million domestic tourists – travel every year. That number was a shocker,” Lee says.

The Innovoterra Properties Inc. chairman thus realizes the potential payback in tapping this considerable market, and places its bets on its two unique, well-appointed and thoughtfully boutique hotels to realize exactly that. Besides, Lee insists Manila and key cities in the country have a dearth of these accommodations. Addressing this lack will uplift  the country’s standing into the more rarefied cosmopolitan destinations in the world.

Henry Hotel Cebu opened its doors in 2012 on what the company describes as a previously “unloved space.” Bearing a “vintage-meets-industrial” design ethos, Henry Hotel Cebu, Lee says, conveys an art gallery experience while keeping to its post-war countenance. “There are art pieces all around,” he says. “Rooms are different from each other – with different murals in each room.”

For Lee, the tagline “Like no other” is not a sound bite but a way of doing things, well, differently. And people have taken notice. So, leveraging the success of his first namesake hotel, Lee last year promptly realized a sequel. The Henry Manila rises as a post-war homage of sorts nestled in a compound that time forgot on FB Harrison. Thirty-four rooms evoke a feeling of nostalgia while meeting contemporary exigencies and providing creature comforts we all can’t live without. “It brings you to the past, but you’re not really living in the past because there’s air-conditioning, there’s WiFi,” avers Lee with a smile. “The floors still creak, but that’s part of the charm.”

Henrys are purposefully conceptualized with patience and utmost respect to the location. “I call them unpolished diamonds,” continues the hotelier. “Each locale or place has its own unloved space – yung iba napabayaan na (some have been neglected). I like to polish them and make them into an expensive rock,” he adds with a laugh. Obviously, Lee has a knack for spotting promising properties.

Lee intimates that a “big chunk” of the The Henry is him. “I’m very passionate about what I do, so I try to put in as much attention to details. I try to put in as much taste, whatever taste, I think I have into these,” he shares, and adds that it’s also about collaborating with like-minded creative types – visual artist Mark Luzon for Cebu and renowned furniture maker Eric Paras for Manila. Paras is now The Henry Manila’s resident interior designer. Lee recalls first discovering the 4,000-square-meter property – several houses of which still have several tenants – when he dropped by Paras’ showroom to procure some of his pieces when Lee’s own house was being renovated. “The five houses that (The Henry) occupies now, were occupied by certain individuals as a house.”

Quite a bit of work helped spruce up the property into an oasis of calm and relaxation that it is today. “That garden was a jungle,” Lee points outside Owner’s Suite – the biggest room in The Henry. “These houses were maintained, but you could really see the age of the houses... We did lot of things here. The skin may look new, but changed the inside. It was really a labor of love… for it to become a functional and efficient hotel while keeping to the look.”

The Henry is about noticing and taking care of the details. Lee eschews the typical in-room fare for an all-Filipino medley of choices such as dried mangoes and rosquillos. Even the woven paper trash bins and trays reflect a passion for local.

If you see Lee wearing a contented smile on his face these days, it’s because his Henrys have become the little hotels that could. Despite the relatively expensive rates of The Henry Cebu, it is an envy of its competitors owing to an impressive occupancy rate ranging from 70 to 75 percent last year. Noted travel website Trip Advisor ranked The Henry Cebu 15th among hotels in the Philippines. Yes, that list includes the bigger international hotel chains. The Henry Manila has done even better – making it to 12th, and was cited as the 2016 Travelers’ Choice. “We try to position our self in the four-star category. We want to create a name for our self, a brand for our self. And I think we’ve already done that because of our reputation on Trip Advisor,” he asserts.

It’s more positive proof that the idea works. “I think this boutique hotel concept is really ripe for the Philippines,” Lee underscores. “It’s ready and ripe. The Filipino market is actually starting to embrace it.”

The particular formula for The Henry, says its namesake, is people, place, and the Philippines. “People, we get young ones (who are) not jaded; people who don’t expect a tip for carrying your bag. We train them with a Henry-branded service. It’s personal, sincere, and familiar,” he explains. “Place, we’d like to have more places like this. I call them places that inspire and engage. And then Philippines, in everything that we do, we celebrate the Philippines. Each place will offer something different. So I might not be able to find something like this anymore. It might be an old building or it might be a run down resort. It’s the ability to breathe new life into it.”

Hanky Lee is immensely confident in The Henry that he’s looking at growing the footprint. “We are looking at Luzon and Visayas,” he shares. “Since we already have Cebu, I was telling the team that I’d like to open a boutique resort this time. That would mean Mactan. Cebu has beaches all around. Our country’s so beautiful. In Cebu, I think we can have three there. In Bohol, maybe two. If we can get properties, Boracay is still there. It’s a bit overdeveloped but there’s still opportunity. And then of course, there’s Palawan. You can do a lot of things there. From Puerto Princesa to Coron to San Vicente, it’s the world’s best island again for a reason. Here in Metro Manila, there’s still room. It can be in Makati.”

There’s no certainty as to how The Henry will look like in each of those locations. But Hanky Lee swears we can expect things to stay charmingly small, and that The Henry will set up shop where we want to go.