Pursuit of Excellence and Creation of Macao Catering Brand
– The Journey of Grand Plaza
Located in Xinhua Building, ZAPE, Grand Plaza Group Catering Management, Limited (hereinafter referred to as “Grand Plaza”) was known as The Grand Plaza previously.
Proud Past Achievements
With a capacity of nearly 100 tables, the Grand Plaza Multi-Function Banquet Hall was once honored as “The Great Hall of the People of Macao SAR”. It hosted various large banquets and wine parties, witnessed the historical moment of Macao’s return to China in 1999 and entertained a number of state leaders and foreign political dignitaries, including Mr. Rong Yiren, the former Vice President of China, Mr. Qian Qichen, the former Vice Premier of China, Mr. Soares, the former President of Portugal and Mr. Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal. Its food and service have been well received by those state leaders.
Grand Plaza has been attaching importance to the communication with its peers since establishment. It keeps absorbing essence, creating new dishes and improving food quality and has won honors in a number of international and domestic culinary competitions and professional evaluations:
In 2002, it won the “Gold and Silver Award” at the Fourth International China Cuisine Competition
In 2003, Mr. Huang Yongju, the Company’s Executive Chef won the titles of “Master in Chinese Culinary Art” and “Top Ten Celebrity Chefs of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Gold Award”
In 2005, Mr. Li Rurong, the General Manager of the Company won the title of “Top Ten People in Catering of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao”
In 2006, Mr. Zhang Huanwen, the Executive Sous Chef of the Company won the title of 2006 Corporate Knowledgeable Advanced Staff granted by SASAC of the State Council
In 2008, it won the honor of “International Famous Chinese Restaurant” granted by the World Association of Chinese Cuisine
In 2009, it won the Institute for Tourism Studies - Macao Occupational Skills System Gold Pin Award
In 2010, Mr. Zhang Huanwen, the Executive Sous Chef of the Company won the Gold Medal of the World Golden Chef Competition
In 2011, it won the honor of “Best International Famous Catering Restaurant for Business Dinners” in China
At each communication and competition, the Grand Plaza gained new perception of the progress and innovation of its peers and weaknesses of itself. The team was deeply aware that consumers’ comments outweighed their own comments in building an excellent catering brand and that the only way to do it would be to pursue excellence.
Current Pursuit of Excellence
Facing the market environment of an increasingly international and diversified catering style with many new foreign invested hotels in Macao in recent years, the Grand Plaza sticks to an approach of accommodating the market and seeking improvements through innovation and sustains superb food quality: First, it keeps instilling new elements into traditional Cantonese dishes, cooks Chinese dishes in western ways, lays out Chinese dishes in western styles, offers western ways of eating Chinese dishes and makes western desserts in Chinese styles. The dishes integrate various styles of cooking, making traditional Chinese dishes a trendy choice of the industry. Second, it keeps improving the taste and package of mooncakes to ensure their quality. As a result, the brand is well-known and received by local people and has become a famous mooncake brand in Macao and the first choice for sending gifts for the Mid-Autumn Festival with continual peaks in sales volume. Third, in February 2010, it launched the new business of “Plaza Hot Pot” to expand different groups of consumers with the trendy self-service hot pot form and new Japanese and Korean catering elements, which substantially increased the number of customers and turnover and rapidly enhanced the popularity of the Grand Plaza in Macao. Fourth, it introduced cookies at the beginning of 2009 with tested internal sale upon fine production. Over two years of cultivation, the cookies were named “Plaza Cookies” at the beginning of 2011 and officially launched to the market in Macao.
While focusing on food innovation and expansion of new business, the Grand Plaza even places more importance on team building to maintain the brand of its service. They are deeply aware that excellent management lays the foundation of a brand and that service is an important support of a brand, which requires managers to input mass labor and money and even generations of efforts. Currently, most of the leaders above the manager level have been working with the Company since establishment. For the eighteen years, they have advocated and built up the cultural ambience of communication, cooperation, commitment and inclusiveness at work. Under the long-term influence of such culture, the team spirit, consciousness of service and comprehensive competence of the staff keep improving and the quality of each detail, each dish, each banquet, from production to service, is attended to with meticulousness and refinement. Now the excellent team consists of nearly 300 people, which is formed through the eighteen years of persistence, sincerity, training and exercise. After sustaining huge challenges such as international financial turmoil, SARS and bird flu, the restaurant has developed into one of the most popular wedding party places among local people, social activity center and business exchange platform, winning groups of loyal customers.
Looking back on the years of cultivation and facing the changing market, the Grand Plaza has no time to linger over the past glories and no courage to stop its steps of pursuing excellence. Instead, it urges itself to accelerate development under the guidance of the Group’s development strategy.
Future with Accelerated Development
Currently, Macao has become an international center for tourism and leisure and specified the industrial goals of developing leisure tourism and convention and exhibition business. The introduction of various policies and the building of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) and Guangzhou-Zhuhai-Macao Railway will substantially strengthen the people-to-people and economic and trade communication between Macao and Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, thus facilitating the in-depth development of Macao’s tourism industry. Meanwhile, the robustness of the gambling industry of Macao, the financial soundness of its government and the continual growth of residents’ income all promote the vitality of the local market. Catering industry is undergoing a favorable opportunity for development.
Facing the market, the Grand Plaza has formulated the specific plan for the next step of development. It will build up a high-end VIP Hall in the existing Xinhua Building, duly decorate the lobby and corridors and rebuild from bottom to third floors into a food city named “The Grand Plaza” to increase customer person-trip by 15% on the current basis; in addition, it will open souvenir food stores in tourist areas of Macao to promote authentic local snacks and self-created food and then promote to the mainland at a proper time, extending to related food processing business on the industrial chain while developing the catering business. Expansion of business areas, reinforcement of capacity, enhancement of decorating hardware and extension on the industrial chain will strengthen the market competitiveness of the Grand Plaza and win the brand more long-lasting recognition of consumers in the market.
Eighteen years ago, the youthful cadres shouldered the big responsibility of preparing for opening and operating the Grand Plaza with their passion for catering and courage for responsibilities; over eighteen years, they have grown into leaders of the brand with the most leadership and innovation spirit. They have sustained loneliness, resisted temptation, fully concentrated on operation and persisted in their pursuit on the journey of building up the brand. Now, they will lead the excellent team to set out once again on a new journey, with the infusion of more updated elements and more culture and accumulation of more consumers’ demands in the accelerated development. Best wishes to the Grand Plaza in its boundless extension and firm advancement from Macao.