The Sheraton Macao, Cotai Central announced yesterday that it’s putting the finishing touches to its hotel facilities, and the grand opening is scheduled for September 2012. According to the information provided by the hotel chain, 10,000 job applications from new graduates as well as hotel industry veterans were received and 5,000 candidates were interviewed.
The staff hired speak 19 languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, English, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Indonesian as well as various Chinese dialects. The Sheraton Macao organized a traditional orientation day for new staff with activities that were both entertaining and informative. To help train the 1,500 new employees, a massive two-week simulation where 10,000 “guests” will arrive and check in and out of 5,000 rooms will be conducted.
The simulation will involve every employee at every level of the hotel from valet parking and guest check-in to housekeeping and food service. It will happen in two waves, with a first wave of guests arriving and staying over a four-day period. From this experience, staff intend to identify issues and problems and develop solutions for the arrival of the second wave of guests.
“It has been a remarkable undertaking to create the world’s largest Sheraton – a real labor of love,” said Josef Dolp, Managing Director of Sheraton Macao. “Macau is quickly transforming from Asia’s center of gambling into a destination city – and the new Sheraton Macao Hotel will be the world’s gathering place to experience the new Macau. We are pleased and privileged to be part of this.”
Sheraton stresses that “an enormous amount of meticulous planning” is going into preparing for the upcoming opening. For example, to light its 3,863 guest rooms, the Sheraton Macao Hotel has to purchase and install 90,796 light bulbs, “more than 4.5 times the total number of light bulbs to light the Eiffel Tower”. Other impressive figures provided by the hotel indicate that “staff will fold and place 35,217 plush towels in the guest bathrooms, fluff 15,652 pillows, and fold 9,372 bed sheets with perfect hospital corners”. Furthermore, “31,158 canned drinks are stocked in the minibars”, and waking up will be “made easier with Sheraton’s complimentary in-room coffee – served in 7,826 coffee mugs”.
The hotel will have more than 12,000 square meters of outdoor pools and its Spa is expected to “use 137 1-liter bottles of massage oil per month”. There will be “570 Sheraton Club rooms, totaling 12,896 square feet of Sheraton Club Lounge space” available.
- Macau Daily Times
