- Interview with Ilja Poepper of Kempinski
- Climate policy: red or green light for oil and coal?
- Tax breaks for foreigners extended
- Subsidies for EVs to expire as planned
- Asian eyes spark criticism of Daimler advertisement
- Hong Kong’s last critical media shuts down
- Xi praises pandemic policy in New Year’s address
- Lockdown tightened in Covid regions
- Profile: Hans-Peter Friedrich, architect of the China Bridge
China.Table wishes you a happy and prosperous new year. Over the next four weeks, we are getting ready for the Chinese New Year on February 1st. We’ll be ready for the Tigers.
This Monday, our CEO Talk with Frank Sieren is all about the hotel industry. Ilja Poepper is an expert in the hotel business in China. He was the only European top manager at the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda. Now, he is the Regional Vice President for marketing in Asia at Kempinski. He tells us about rich Chinese who easily spend several thousand euros for an overnight stay – only to order food from delivery services. Clever management must also be ready for this. Anyone involved in Chinese marketing will also take notice of something else: Poepper is convinced that approaching influencers is key for success in China.
He also tells of his interactions with Wang Jianlin, the founder of the Wanda Group. He has a military leadership style. But a high level of discipline makes it possible to complete complex projects on schedule. “There were no excuses or developments like at the new Berlin airport,” says Poepper.
China just likes to stay on schedule. However, anyone who is clinging to this fact will be left confused by present events when looking at climate policy. While China only brought lukewarm plans to the international climate conference, it could exceed them by far, as current assessments show. At the same time, economic planners are sending contradictory signals in favor of coal. Christiane Kühl leads you through the maze of Chinese climate plans in her feature.
On January 1st, the free trade mechanism RCEP was launched – if you are interested in the details, China.Table has got you covered. And if you did not open China.Table during the holidays, we would like to draw your attention to our interview with sinologist Klaus Muehlhahn. In his forecast for 2022, he puts the signals of Chinese domestic and foreign policy into perspective. His message doesn’t bode well for foreign trade: China is now systematically beginning to use the supply chain to exert pressure.
Have a pleasant start to this special week!
Finn Mayer-Kuckuk
CEO Talk
‘We always have to come up with something new in China’
Ilja Poepper (50) is Vice President Sales & Marketing of Kempinski Hotels in Asia. Poepper is already the second generation to live in Beijing. His father was the head of Alcatel SEL in China and co-founded the German business community in Beijing in the mid-1980s, which later became the AHK.
His son Ilya went to the German School in Beijing and later attended the Steigenberger Academy in Bad Reichenhall, one of the most renowned schools for hotel management. Nevertheless, things were not just handed to him for free – on the contrary – he has worked his way up through the Chinese hotel business: Hsi tenures included Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and Howard Johnson. In 2012, he was appointed Vice President at the Chinese real estate group Wanda.
At Wanda, he was involved in the development of the first Chinese luxury hotel group and the opening of 76 hotels in six years. Here, Poepper was responsible for a turnover of $1.1 billion and greatly exceeded profit expectations. After this stressful success, he was finally able to fulfill his dream and just do nothing for a whole year while sailing in Southeast Asia, as well as Lake Constance. In 2019, he then joined Kempinski, the oldest European luxury hotel group based in Geneva.
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