Blog

Ted Fang is distracted. We should have known better than to have asked a hotelier, yet alone one who is a designophile, to meet us at Singapore’s hottest hotel of the moment, Parkroyal on Pickering. “Look at that green wall,” he points to a vertical garden.

“Interesting that they did that,” he adds, before literally trailing off into thought.
With Fang, these little flashes of momentary rumination are bound to happen. Whether on holiday or at a magazine cover shoot, he cannot truly disconnect from work. It would be hard to, anyway, considering that as co-founder of the Frontier Group in 2013, he oversaw the strategic direction of one of the biggest mid-market hotel chains in China today. And design inspirations — as well as design no-nos — can translate to future applications.

Fang’s Beijing headquartered Frontier Group, which he founded with his half brothers Harry and David Tan in 2003, held the master franchise for American hotel chain Days Inn in Greater China. In just 10 years, it had grown one hotel into 120, and already had a further 80 in the pipeline. Of this, 20 to 25 were due to open in 2013. “If we’re lucky, it’ll be 28,” the 46-year-old tells us.