Hotelier Indonesia Magazine 30th Edition Edition 30th Finale 2017 | Page 62

HOT | BUSINESS
Taffin teamed up with his millennial son Louka, who has
already become a successful hospitality entrepreneur at the
age 27. Both of them hated the way resorts were all about
welcome drinks, grim soulless buffets, and designed to put
guests in a virtual lock-down, keeping them away from
each other.
Louka explains, “traditional hoteliers are obsessed by guest
rooms and forget that hospitality from its earliest roots in
pub hotels, is all about meeting people, going local and
not just about the four walls you sleep in. At Le Pirate we
don’t want heads on beds, we want bums at the beach club,
travellers who have a pulse and aren’t afraid to use it.”
Today, the brand’s pathway to expansion is clearly its points
of difference – being able to pre-fabricate beach club hotels
and assemble them on-site complete with fit-out in under
six months from start to finish. Investors often have to wait
a decade to generate a good return, with a typical Le Pirate
project; it is two to three years.
From the onset, Le Pirate’s first beach club hotel in Nusa
Ceningan, off the coast of Bali, gathered a strong repu-
tation with he social media and smartphone set. Images,
YouTube videos and chats on Facebook, Twitter and be-
yond have been a strong driver of direct bookings.
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Further momentum came with the opening of a larger pro-
perty in Gili Trawangan and most recently in the buzzing
destination of Labuan Bajo in Flores.
As for the shift into floating beach club cruisers, tagged as
Explorer, Louka says, “we wanted to take one of Indonesia’s
key attributes, the spectacular ocean and numerous islands,
and make them more accessible in a fun, in an authentic
and natural way. No pretentions here, its bums on boats,
and the more the merrier.”
Looking to expansion, Fredo and Louka have teamed up
with hospitality expert Bill Barnett, Founder of Asia-based
C9 Hotelworks, to grow the model into one that is now
pushing outside Indonesia.
With Le Pirate International established in Singapore, the
team is working on pushing out licensing and branding
model and engaging developers who want to enter the
hotel business, but who don’t know where or how to start.
The “hotel in a