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Housewife who saved Toyoko hotel chain focuses on female managers
Click HERE for the tasksheet for this story.
BY KATHLEEN CHU, KATSUYO KUWAKO AND FINBARR FLYNN
BLOOMBERG - simplified from original. FEB 1, 2017
Maiko Kuroda isn’t new to challenges. She was a housewife when her father’s hotel chain had a scandal. It forced her to return to the business about 10 years ago. She greatly increased profits. Now she’s looking at markets in Europe and North America.
Political changes may make that difficult. The changes may hurt the company’s goal of 10.45 million rooms around the world someday.
For now, Toyoko Inn Co. is pushing ahead. They will open hotels in Germany and France this year. They hope to build 1,000-room hotel in New York. The company gives credit for its success to female management. This is unusual in male-dominated Japan.
Kuroda, a mother of two, was a housewife in Germany. In 2008, her father, Norimasa Nishida, the founder of the company, stepped down. He had a scandal involving the illegal dumping of construction material. Kuroda says she put up her hand for the job to rejoin Toyoko Inn. She became president. She had worked for three years after graduating from university.
The huge turnaround of the company isn’t the only story that makes 40-year-old Kuroda stand out in business. Rather it’s her background as a housewife and mother. Also, she has a strategy targeting women over men when hiring managers. This is unusual in Japan which is traditionally male-dominated.
Ninety-seven percent of the company’s more than 250 hotels are run by women. This is very different than most companies. In Japan, men hold about 93 percent of management roles.
Toyoko Inn targets domestic business travelers. It provides rooms in convenient locations, such as near train stations. Prices are fairly cheap – less than $100. The strategy has been successful at home, but it hasn’t been as smooth overseas. The company succeeded in South Korea. It failed in Cambodia, where it has to rely more on tourists.
The 53-story New York hotel would be its biggest yet. It may take three more years to get permission and to build it. A 400-room hotel is will open in front of Frankfurt Central Station in February of this year. Another hotel in Marseilles, France, will open later in the year.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said women are a key to boosting growth. However his government is not on target to have female workers in 30 percent of supervisory positions in all fields by 2020. Kuroda said her first step in hiring female managers is to ask, “Who wants to become a leader?”
Reiko Sato, a 45-year-old hotel manager for the company, joined three years ago after working with a small trading company for 10 years. She always wondered what things would be like if she was in charge. The mother of twin daughters in their teens, Sato also wanted a job where she could take off weekends and holidays. Workdays she often leaves after 7 p.m.
“Women managers work so hard,” said Kuroda. “They have the sort of fighting spirit to protect the hotels they work in and the staff they employ.”