AT THIS year’s National Technology Forum, to be held on October 15 at the Empire Hotel, Tune Hotels’ CEO Mark Lankester, will share Malaysia’s biggest and most inspirational success story on enterprise innovation and ICT. Tune Hotels is expanding rapidly across Southeast Asia and India with a simple business model of driving business via the Internet, a press release said.

Tune Hotels began taking bookings on March 1, 2007, with the launch of tunehotels.com, the chain’s website and booking engine. Following this, its first hotel was opened on May 22, 2007. With a tagline of “5-Star Sleeping Experience at a 1-Star Price”, Tune Hotels prides itself in providing good levels of comfort and security at a very low price.

Room rates have been snapped up from as low as RM9.99. On its first anniversary and in celebration of the opening of its 1Borneo Hotel, Tune Hotels offered an unprecedented rate of RM0.01 for rooms at the Downtown KL and 1Borneo Hotel.

This limited service model used by Tune Hotels is similar to the no frills business model practiced by its sister company AirAsia, and has been adapted to the hospitality industry. As with low-cost carriers, eliminating many traditional passenger services to keep costs low and prices affordable, Tune Hotels’ concept also omits much of the traditional services that are seldom utilised to keep costs and rates as low as possible.

Mark Lankester joined Tune Hotels from the entertainment and leisure consumer goods industry. With over 15 years experience with the Warner Music Group in senior regional and managing director roles throughout Asia, Mr Lankester’s experience includes managing companies from start-up phases to managing growth-oriented established businesses across Asia and Greater China.

Mark Lankester is joined at the conference by a number of distinguished speakers and experts from Brunei and abroad including Google’s Data Architect, Mr Grant Allen, Regional Director of Enterprise Technology, Oracle Corporation, Mr Kaleem Chaudry, and General Manager, OCC Corporation, Mr Tomohide Yabiku.

Themed “Innovation Transforming Enterprise”, this year’s National Technology Forum follows the success of last year’s inaugural event. It will bring together leading overseas ICT practitioners and 200 local IT players and senior executives from government and business to share knowledge and insights on global trends and applicable technologies for greater productivity at lower costs.

• A colourful CNY celebration
• His Majesty graces Chinese New Year gathering
• Speed limit enforcement operation
• White crocodile surprises residents
• Staying healthy & active in Mentiri