Silver Fu, the co-founder of world’s most successful travel corporation, SilverPark Hotel Co. Ltd., was found dead in his mansion near West Lake in Hangzhou, China last night. He was ninety-eight years old.
Born in a small town in Zhejiang Province, which is located on the eastern coast of China, he started to become obsessed with the travel industry since his childhood. With the guide of his parents, he traveled to various places within China when he was very young. He went on to travel to many countries in Southeast Asia and America with some experience of what truly makes a traveler happy and enjoyable.
With the dream of transformational world-class education, he made a big decision, to study aboard in the United States for his high school when he was sixteen. He was hard-working during his first three years in U.S., and he went on to Cornell for his undergraduate degree in Hotel Administration. In these four years, he hardly slept before 12am. He made every opportunity to intern in great travel companies in this country, such as United Airlines, Expedia, and Marriott Hotel Group. With this precious empirical experience and some first-hand data, he, and his roommate Tom Park, who was also passionate about travel industry and shared same view with him, co-founded SilverPark Hotel Co. Ltd.
From then on, a new era of travel began. The first SilverPark Hotel opened in Shanghai at July, 2029. Mr. Fu and Mr. Park were the first ever to create an “urban-resort”. It was not a resort building within the city. Rather, the hotel greatly promoted a lifestyle consisted of living refreshingly and being close to the nature.
“There are not so many social norms in the hotel”, said Silver, “we understand the pressure of modern city life, and one of our initial aims is to create a place for people to get out of routine to be who they truly are while staying in the hotel”. When stepping into the “urban-resort”, a wonderful and light scent of white tea would float into your nostrils immediately. Smiles were just everywhere around the hotel. You could grab some fresh fruit or hot cookies in corners if you want. A gym was built within the roof garden with access for everyone. To increase hotel’s sustainability, guests would get bonus directly on their bill from saving water. Most wonderfully, every staff was ready to chat freely with guests under the condition that privacy was highly guaranteed, which enabled Mr. Fu to redefine hospitality, one of the most significant terms and concepts in travel industry. He said that serving cordially was no more important than building a tight and intimate relationship between customers. This conception of hospitality was continued to be taught and used till today.
SilverPark Shanghai was just an astonishing success. Later on, Hong Kong, San Francisco, London, New York, Singapore, SilverPark grew rapidly into cosmopolitan cities. Apart from what mentioned before, every SilverPark Hotel combined the Oriental elements with local culture in addition of its’ urban-resort conception. What made everyone shocked again was the most frequent guests of these hotels are NOT travelers, but local dwellers who wanted to spend a fascinating vacation.
When asked his secret of success, the entrepreneur always replied: “follow your idea, work hard and never doubt yourself”. Mr. Fu actually is this kind of person all his life. He made careful plans for every hotel he was about to open. He always stayed up all the night for a groundbreaking idea.
“The star of the whole hotel industry now falls, and we are so sad about that,” said a spokesman for Tony Alexander, president and CEO of Starwood Hotel Group. Jake Smith, Executive Manager of SilverPark, stated, “I and my colleagues are so sad about the upsetting message of Silver. We would all carry on with Mr. Fu’s great idea and keep making every guest of us refreshed.”
