BY NIAM SEET WEI
No one can predict what will happen when one ventures beyond the comfort zone.
Similarly, when former reporter Lee Meng Fun decided to quit her full-time job in 2016 to go into unchartered territory, she had no idea what awaited her.
Betting on the 50-50 odds by leveraging on the soaring economic waves, Lee, 37, never imagined that she would eventually become a successful industry player. In just over two years, her business has blossomed and she is now managing 15 homestays in Cameron Highlands, Pahang.
“It feels surreal till today, as I had never known that the demand for homestays could be so strong,” said Lee, who served with a local Chinese daily for over five years from 2005.
Recalling her first venture in the world of business, with which she was totally unacquainted, she told Bernama she initially just wanted to rent out her three-room apartment in Brinchang, Cameron Highlands, in the “Airbnb” way. (Airbnb is an online marketplace and hospitality service that allows people to rent out their properties to guests.)
She spent about RM10,000 to RM15,000 to do some simple renovations with family-friendly Japanese anime themes. Naming it Bricks Homestay, she registered her property with the Malaysian Tourism Tax System, an online submission and payment system for tourism tax under the Royal Malaysian Customs Department, in June 2016.
Shortly afterwards, she listed Bricks Homestay on the Airbnb site and Facebook marketplace, not knowing that she was actually embarking on her entrepreneurial journey.
“The demand was surprisingly overwhelming after I put my first apartment on both online platforms,” Lee recalled.
Lee said the numerous enquiries she received during the year-end holiday season in 2016 caught her on the hop and she had no choice but to turn down some of her potential customers due to the limited space in her apartment.
“The relentless requests made me feel bad as I could not accommodate all of them in my three-room apartment,” she said.
The overwhelming demand, however, prompted her to mull over her next step – expanding her business.
“I started asking my neighbours if they wanted to rent out their units to me,” she said.
And, from there Lee’s homestay business blossomed. Two-and-a-half years later, Lee has turned into a homestay manager who is managing 15 units, comprising seven apartments, seven penthouses and a semi-detached house – all in Cameron Highlands.
“Excluding the one that I own, the rest are all rented units,” she said.
According to Lee, the response to her homestays was immensely encouraging with the average occupancy rate for all her units hitting 20 days a month.
“Believe it or not, I started to receive bookings for Chinese New Year 2019 in August last year, and by end-2018, all the units were fully-booked for the fourth and fifth days of the Lunar month (Feb 8 and Feb 9, 2019),” she said.
The buoyant performance saw her recording full-year sales of RM480,000 in 2018, a 60 percent surge from RM300,000 in 2017.
“It was also a huge leap from the RM25,000 that I recorded during the first six months after I started the business, that is from June to December 2016,” she said.
To help her cope with the influx of enquiries and solve the trivial but urgent problems at the homestays, Lee, who is now pursuing her master’s degree at Universiti Malaya, decided to team up with an ex-colleague from an event management company, Chia Ching Hie, in April 2017.
The two later collaborated with a cleaning company owner, Kenny Hew, to manage the cleaning services at their homestays.
“Other than arranging the cleaning services, Hew also deals with guests’ complaints, such as those concerning faulty electrical appliances,” said Lee, adding with the strategic collaborations, she was able to concentrate on her studies in Kuala Lumpur and only need to visit Cameron Highland two or three times a month to carry out “inspections”.
Claiming that she was among the first batch of “outsiders” who helped the Airbnb service in Cameron Highlands to flourish, Lee said: “I still remember vividly that when I first registered with the Airbnb website in 2016, there were less than 50 homestays available in Cameron Highlands and most of them were sparsely furnished.
“Now, you can see more than 400 rentals being listed on the booking site.”
The booming homestay industry, however, has led to stiff competition among the Airbnb hosts and even triggered an unnecessary price war.
“Some have even slashed the price (rental) to as low as RM120 per unit a night, almost half of my rate which is about RM200 a night during weekdays and RM380 a night during weekends,” she said.
To gain an edge over her competitors, Lee diversified her business in June 2018 by collaborating with a restaurant owner for a hotpot delivery service.
“Again, to my surprise, the response was astounding. So now I am engaging with another two to three restaurant owners to not only deliver steamboat but also local breakfast fare such as nasi lemak and half-boiled eggs to their doorsteps,” she said.
Other than engaging with the local eatery owners, Lee is also looking at working with a team of tour guides and e-hailing service drivers to offer both accommodation and tour packages to her guests.
She also revealed that some people had approached her last year to forge a business arrangement under which they would bring groups of tourists from mainland China to stay at her homestays as part of their tour programme.
Such a partnership would translate into lucrative business for her “but, of course, I still need to study it thoroughly before sealing any deal”, she said, hoping that the partnership could be inked this year.
The ambitious Lee also divulged that she and Chia were currently working on another project, namely the establishment of a wedding venue, a get-together space or even a staff-less cafe on a 6,758 sq ft plot of land in Cameron Highlands.
“We are still working on it. Hopefully, we can start our business there in September this year,” she added.
On her expansion plan, Lee said she intended to expand her homestay business to either Penang or Langkawi but using a different business model.
“Instead of renting units and running the business like what I have been doing so far, I would prefer to set up a management company and fully capitalise on my know-how in managing homestays. I could, perhaps, manage an entire block (of apartments) instead of (managing homestays on a) per unit basis,” she said.
Lee’s long-term vision is to set up a cultural and creative park in Cameron Highlands but acquiring the land for her project is her biggest challenge.
“Hopefully, I will get there soon,” she added.– Bernama
