How Sonia Cheng Differentiates Rosewood Hotel Group From The Rest In The Luxury Market

Under Sonia Cheng’s leadership, the Rosewood Hotel Group is well on its way to becoming an empire. She tells Denise Li how she’s creating a luxury hotel brand for the younger jet set and how the group sets itself apart from its competitors.

- Denise Li

Sonia Cheng was quite clear about the vision she had for Rosewood Hotel Group when the former New World Hospitality Group – a division of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Enterprises – bought the US luxury group in 2011. “I saw myself as a target client,” says Rosewood’s 38-year-old CEO. “The younger generation of luxury travellers is looking for something different, which is why we’ve also set out to create hotels that no one else was creating.

“We saw a great opportunity in Rosewood, because of its unique philosophy, which is ‘a sense of place’. It’s about creating different experiences in different locations, and building a collection, rather than offering a cookiecutter experience.”

Cheng and I are chatting in Rosewood Bangkok’s all-day dining destination Lakorn, which I thought was an excellent example of what Rosewood is about. Though it’s dubbed a “European brasserie”, there is also a good selection of upscale yet authentic renditions of Thai street food favorites on the menu, including tod mun pla (Thai fish cakes), sai ua (Thai herb sausage) and hoy jor (blue crab wrapped in dried tofu skin).

Indeed, this thread – a sincere effort to represent that particular locale’s food in its dining experiences – runs through all the Rosewood hotels in Asia: “When we curate our F&B experiences, it’s important for us to also make the hotel a destination for the local community, which is an angle that hasn’t been pursued by our competitors,” says Cheng.