EPISODE 10:
BALI BEACH GLAMPING : THE JOURNEY TO SUCCESS

00:01
Hi guys, this is Omri from Bali Business Club. So today we are in beautiful Bali Beach Glamping in Kedungu on the outskirts of Kedungu We’re going to meet with Roger Michel with the partner as well as GM of that beautiful resort he’s going to tell us the whole story behind that resort how they started How they are managing it the business behind it how it fits in the Kedungu area Very happy to be here today. It’s a beautiful day. Please follow me and let’s meet Roger How are you? Thank you, how do you do?

00:45
Good to see you. So well, thank you very much for having us today in the in the Glamping with you So you are the general manager of the Bali Beach glamping Managing director, sorry, sorry. Yeah. Oh you told me too yeah so We come here today to understand better What what is the glamping a lot of people have heard about it? not so many people actually have come except for like the guests and Everybody has everyone has questions. I think what’s interesting here is to discuss. I mean to see this beautiful place first of all

01:22
And to show it more eye balls, Yeah, but also to understand how this business came to life What’s your role in it the whole situation in Kedungu like how does this business fits in the Kedungu developments and Some you know all the stories you may you may have so but after we can start with is a Quick introduction of yourself if you can tell us a little bit about bit you I mean, I know your name You’re Roger and I know you are You work here, but like maybe can you tell us like how what you’ve done in your in the past?

01:56
How what’s what’s? What road let you to come to Bali and work in this resort. Sure Sure. Absolutely. Yeah My name is Roger Michel. I’m the managing director here at Bali Beach Glamping me and two business partners decided it About five years ago was the conception of this idea having a glamping next to Villa Vedas Villa Vedas is just just one of the massive popular wedding villa. It was a beautiful villa right behind. Yes Yes, and they had lots of weddings booked and the idea was to have accommodations for

02:30
those wedding guests So Villa Vedas is owned by one of your partners. owned by one of your partners. His name is Tim Robert. Yeah, okay, and Then we started Conceptualizing this project and then we very quickly realized it’s such a beautiful piece of land that we would Try to do our own events and So this all came to fruition so how long was Villa Vedas Built for when what year been around for about almost ten years ten years Wow Okay, so operational maybe for six seven years that that way. Okay,

03:05
because Bali Beach Glamping is four years All right, correct. Correct. Okay. Yeah, so you had Villa Vedas I mean Tim had Villa Vedas and decided to yeah expands in some ways There was a very large wedding market and it was growing only more as Australia is becoming more and more expensive our target market is usually Australians and they they can all fly to Bali and have a cheaper wedding and much more Options. Okay obvious in Bali. They’re very beautiful for for a wedding because like so so everyone understand

03:39
You have around 50 tents. I believe yeah, actually I slept in This one or not the family one this one. I think yes Yeah and you rent as to guests like you know people can book on booking.com and other OTAs or the whole venue to wedding where So if you wanted to book for your family right now next april, june or september Everything is block No way to book an Individual tent because we really focus on having weddings we hold about 200 tents weddings and event here for year Wow. and then 4 months

04:20
before the event date We start opening all the gaps so if there is one night or two night or three night gap there is really only gap’s station we thought that we’ve had people ask if they could come here. two weeks and if they’re lucky, they can get one or two nights so it’s really fully focused on the wedding market and not just wedding, I mean we have there is an event coming up here. yes we also do a lot of MICE in the off season so and birthday party so we had Maya Hasan wich is a very famous indonesian harpist

05:00
Yeah. and she had her 50’s birthday party that’s equivalent to what a wedding would be Okay, big one yeah, we’ve had lamborghinis pull up here and Yeah.. They can drive that road. They use the Ciputra Road on the one that’s going to the beach club The location, so right now, so we are just near the beach, we’re going to see the ocean in a minute, and that land belongs to Ciputra group, correct? All of this with 80 hectares here on the beach, all the way up to the road belongs to Ciputra although we were

05:36
we were the first business collaboration here on this land and it’s been already so successful that we are now already working on 2 other projects So that’s the Beach Club. correct, the beach club and also building villas to operate on their newest property. Not right behind here, just on top the hill, like 500 meters up the hill. Okay, interesting. So, and the beach club is on the eastern part of Correct, yeah. The Beach Glamping, yeah? Okay, Villa Vedas was here before Ciputra or at the same time?

06:13
Villa Vedas was here before Ciputra bought the land that’s why when you look at the 80 hectares plots there is only a few gaps and Villa Vedas was one of them I think Tim got the land about 15, little bit or 15 years ago Interesting. Okay. Okay. And Ciputra is a… So let’s remind everyone of Ciputra. So Ciputra is a… I’ll start saying it and then you takeover. So it’s a very, very large Indonesian conglomerate. It’s a massive group of companies. They have banks. They have real estate. They build cities.

06:49
They don’t build bunch of villages. They build cities. correct, I think the bank one is Sinar Mas but Ciputra, it’s a family run company but it’s one of, if not the largest land Developer. Land developer. In Indonesia, yeah. In Indonesia, yes. They are not entirely. So their projects here from the information that we have. They have a plan to build 400 villas. There’s probably around like maybe 80, 100 already built. I think now It’s a bit over a hundred already Over 100, yeah. Okay. And I saw when I drove back this morning

07:23
that they started a new face cluster of villas. What’s the name? Resvara Resvara, yeah. Just like between here and Joshua district where there’s probably going to be another 50 or 80 villas there. Yeah. and you can see here they rebuild very wide roads They have an amazing Yeah, Master plan similar to Nuanu where really everything is stored on before massive development. Yeah, this is what I love about this area is you drive here and you’re like on your usual Balinese tiny road with traffic and too many cars for the size of

08:01
the road and you arrive here and suddenly there’s this massive highway. Yes, you can park that right side of the road and you still have space. Yeah, it’s been thought, you know, that’s what I like about this place here. Okay, interesting. So beside the villas, I heard about Rosewood Hotel, I heard about different developments that are happening around the Ciputra area or in the or in the Ciputra area. Can you tell us any more about that? It’s not been confirmed yet, but yes, I think they’re in discussion about

08:32
having a Rosewood Hotel here as well. Yeah, there was a risk council and I think they withdrew during COVID or something and Rosewood is still in the race. All right, okay, so we’ve stayed too long here. Let’s discover the rest of the resort here. Maybe you can take us to the restaurant area so we are near by the ocean Yeah, thanks. Bright. It’s good. Yeah, yeah. All right. So, Roger, where are we now? We are at the restaurant in the restaurant part. We are at the swimming pool near the beach. And there’s a few

09:38
waves. I see some surfers. There were some surfers. Yes, correct. Oh, they got a… It’s a fairly popular surf beach. It’s got what they call an A-frame, what professional surfers call an A-frame. It’s got a left and a right surf break at the same time. So we’ve got people who surf left or right can come here together and surf. So that’s quite popular and also for schools. If they don’t know what they prefer, they tend to come out here and then they can also come to the restaurant and have some coffee.

10:09
So this is Pigstone, right? Pigstone is right over there. Yeah. Probably 200 meters. And this one would be called Tampih Beach. Tampih Beach. Okay. Yeah, it’s Tampih Surf Break. Yeah, that’s Tampih Surf Break. And you talk about it like you’re using it every morning. Yeah, I… Do you surf? I surf. Actually, at the moment, I surf in Kedungu every weekend. Because my son just started… Okay. The thing is he’s five and a half and he’s doing really, really well and he’s really enjoying it. So I’m out there on the surfboard more supporting him

10:42
I cannot say that I’m a good surfer, but I can surf a bit. But the Kedungu Beach, so like maybe 500 meters from here, is known for being a beginner’s surf break, right? That’s why it’s great for him. It’s very safe. And… But there is also a little bit further to the… What is it? West side? Sorry, to the east side. It’s also a more challenging surf break. So Kedungu has a little bit of everything. That’s why it’s very popular. And I’ve seen this in three years, four years, from there was one, two, three surfers to 50,

11:22
100, 150 surfers easily. It’s grown massively. Yeah, it’s true, yeah. Yeah, we installed a camera, you know, that’s surf camera. So maybe we can put the name here. It’s called… There’s a website called ilovekedungu.com And you can basically see the surf break of Kedungu live from the CCTV camera that we installed. It was sponsored by the Kedungu Fund and Kedungu Real Estate. So yeah, surf is very important. We’ve mentioned surf multiple times in our previous podcasts because surf kind of like creates surfers

12:06
are the first to come to an area. You know that more than anyone else. And Kedungu and Tampih and Old Pigstone, all these places were absolutely unknown from the gen-pop except for surfers who are the only category of people that don’t care about comfort, are ready to travel miles to get to the surf break. And they are the surf first one that’s, you know, discover new areas in Indonesia That’s very interesting to mention them as well. Okay, let’s talk about business a little bit. I’d like to know a little

12:47
bit more about the character. Who is Roger Michel? Can you tell us where you’re born, where you raised, where did you live before , how many kids you have, how many dogs you have? No, we don’t care about dogs but a little bit more about you In a nutshell, in two minutes, sales-pitch. Sure. So I was born in 1972 in Switzerland near Zuk. I then… German side, yeah? Yeah, German side. I then grew up there until I went traveling at age 18. And I didn’t have to go to the Swiss military, which was an exception at the time.

13:30
And that really led to a cascade of fortunate events that brought me here. And it basically was that instead of going to the military, I was able to work the summer, make money, and do my first EUREL trip. And I discovered traveling and I was completely hooked. And then also very, very early, fell in love with a girl from America and basically at age 20… There you go. moved to the United States There you go. And got married. Okay, okay. So I then spent about 20… Yeah, just about 20 years in the US.

14:12
So where in the US were you located? Seattle. Seattle. And also… You lived there for a while, yeah? So far, yeah. In San francisco, okay Yeah, yeah. So I lived about… Out of the 20 years, I lived 18 years in Seattle and two years in the Bay Area. What did you do there? I was an engineer. So I studied material science. I became a contract researcher. And in the Bay Area, I actually worked for a company that supplied measurement tools for Apple, for some of the big solar companies and implant tech companies.

14:51
And then during the… Or just before the big crash in 2008, I decided to start a sports events management company and moved back from the Bay Area to Seattle. And basically, my co-workers, my family, my former professors all thought I was nuts to leave the comfort of a job for the unknown of running your own business, especially during one of the worst economic crises that we have ever seen. Sure. And it turned out… I’ve had that before. And it turned out to be a huge success. So I ran that sports events management

15:34
company for about seven years before landing in Bali for a two-month trip to kind of… What year was that, when you first came in Bali? It was 2014. 2014, so like 10 years ago. 14 exactly 10 years ago. Okay. Could be to this day. I have to look up the date. And so then I… Within a month of my two-month trip here, I decided, again, just do something that everybody else will think is absolutely crazy and just stay here and run the business remotely. So I offered my employees a pay raise. 2014 was not an easy time

16:22
to run a business remotely. Internet was… I remember… I had a tech startup invited back in the day and internet was very, very… I lived north of Ubud. Internet was slow. It was unreliable. So we did that for three years until I offered my employees to buy the company. And they bought the company and it’s still running very successfully now. So that sports events management company, I left that behind. And I just sort of… I took a few years to just kind of find myself in Bali, I guess, so

17:05
to say, a little bit of… Good shoes. A little bit of eat ,pray, love, main style. Oh my God. And then started realizing there’s some good opportunities here. Started a villa management company and then… Sorry, not to cut you off, but you have… So you are managing part of the Beach Glamping, Bali Beach Glamping, but you also have on the side a villa management company called Kai… Listings Bali. Listings Bali, yeah. Yeah. And that actually led to this project. So because that was the first business I

17:45
started, through that I met my business partner, Tim, who I managed villas for. And then he proposed to me this big project of having a glamping resort. So it’s Tim, he is the owner of Villa Villa Vedas, right next door, this massive venue. and back here it’s the biggest and most successful wedding villa in Bali and possibly in the world. There really isn’t anything like it. There’s three pools, there’s a 40 meter pool, sky pool and it’s really geared towards weddings. And then what we basically did was

18:25
created this here with the same concept, geared towards weddings. And we found that it works really well, not just for the Australian market, but for the Indonesian market as well. Let’s go back in time a little bit. So you met Tim and then you have another partner, right? Correct. So Russell Percival, the third business partner. Where are Tim and Russell located? I mean, Tim is located here in Bali and Russell was at the time and now he’s running a project that we also started in Perth in Australia.

18:56
Okay. So we have a land beachfront in Perth where we’re building a glamping resort. The glamping number three, yeah? Glamping number… So this is number one, you have beach Nusa, number two and Perth is number three. Yeah. We get back to that in a moment. So let’s go back a little bit on the inception of the project. So you guys… So I guess the idea came from Tim because he had this villa, right? Correct. Right here, yeah? So Tim got this crazy idea, but he didn’t own the land. So he went to knock on

19:29
Ciputra’s door and he asked: “Hey, how about you guys give me some land here and I’ll make great money out of it.” I will say we thought we had a 1% chance. Yeah. Yeah. And there were some… I would say there were also some fortunate reasons why Ciputra decided to give this a try because they had a deal that fell through with one of the big hotel companies. They were eager to get something started and Glamping has a very low bar to enter the hotel market, right? It’s not a lot of investment compared to

20:13
a big five-star hotel. And they were curious where they decided to offer us a relatively short-term lease, a bit too short for our taste. But we decided to give this a shot with a short lease. And then within the course of a few years, they decided that this project was definitely worth seeing through for a longer term. And meanwhile… You’re extending that. Extended that. That’s very good, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. And so how many tents do you have? 50 tents. 50 tents, yeah. And so do you have different size?

20:51
Like, so it’s for families, yeah? Correct. So we have three tent types. We have a 14 square meter, a really small tent that’s more for a couple single, for backpackers, for couples that don’t need a lot of comfort. But I will say that all tents have aircon, all tents have private bathroom, all tents have king-coil, king-size beds, so very, very comfortable beds. So when I say not a lot of comfort, obviously, compared to camping, it’s a huge… Yeah. Great bathroom. We also have bigger tents. We have bigger tents with more amenities.

21:27
We have also 25 square meters and a 40 square meter. So the one I stayed in the family tent is the biggest one you have. Correct. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. And… Okay. Those tents are made by… I understand are made by Escape Nomade. Yes, correct. Is that correct? That’s company… A Dutch owned company in Ubud Dutch owned swiss, yeah Yeah, I remember the name. Ueli was called… Anneke. Anneke and the Swiss guy in… Ueli. Exactly. I’ve met him as well actually, a long time ago. Yeah, it’s very… It’s very well made.

22:01
It’s very… They’re very well made. They’re not cheap. No, they’re not cheap. They’re very well made and we found that it is key to our success. So Glamping number two and Glamping number three that were… Glamping number two is already operational. It’s doing really well in Nusa Dua. Glamping number three in Australia. We have chosen the same concept because it’s doing so well. Okay. How big is that area? One and a half hectare. The whole Glamping place, okay. And the beach club next door. So that will be… What kind of beach club is it?

22:34
Is it like a Potato Head or Finns? Yeah, more… I mean, if I think about it in terms of the beach clubs that are pre-existing, we’re trying to be unique. So again, we’re trying to do something that doesn’t exist yet. So I would say more day club because… With the glamping nearby and a lot of development happening, we want to make sure that we are not cause of noise complaints. Especially since we have a glamping which is not extremely sound resistant, obviously. So we’re going to focus more on day and

23:09
then also some events probably. But then… But no loud music No, but if we do then people from the events would be here staying at the glamping. So they’re like… Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, like the wedding… Yeah, correct. But that’ll just be like once a month. So is the beach club going to complain about the wedding music? And we do have a sound wall in between. So we already have a design for a sound wall. And there’s actually a reasonable amount of space until the beach club starts. And with the ocean

23:41
sounds, as you can hear here, we really don’t believe there will be any issues. We’ve worked closely with the neighbors since we started, since we’ve done so many weddings. And I will say that we have a very good relationship with all neighbors. So they can immediately text us or call us if they feel like the music is inconveniencing them. They will. It’s true relationship. So no, I mean, we’ve had now… Over 250 weddings since this opened. And the fact that we still have a very good relationship with the neighbors

24:15
should say that we take this serious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s good because noise is a major factor in the change of landscape in an area from residential to commercial only or touristy only. If you look at, for example, the Berawa area where Finns and Atlas Remember, before Atlas was there, there were villas there. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine now having a villa right next to Atlas. I mean, this is insane. Actually, there is one. If you go to the very end of Atlas, if you go inside and you look beyond the fence,

24:51
there is this massive, half-abandoned villa right next to Atlas. And you can tell, you look at it, you can tell that villa was the victim of the Atlas beach club. It was probably, It had it’s years of glory and now it’s half-abandoned. Yeah. And it’s probably like around half a hectar villa or something. Yeah. So beach clubs, unfortunately, along the coast from the airport to Pererenan to Pantai Lima, they are the main problem for residents, for residential anyway areas. So yeah, noise is very important.

25:31
It’s great. I think a lot of people have heard, I’ve been emphasizing on this because a lot of people have heard about the beach club being built. But I think it’s important to tell the world that it’s not going to be a boom, boom, boom place like Finn’s and Atlas I think if some people might be dubious to believe this, I would like to argue we would be the worst complainer of noise. We ourselves, as Bali Beach Glamping, we have a big noise here every day. This is our heart and soul. This was our first resort.

26:09
And so we will make sure that Yeah, it wouldn’t make sense for you to have the beach club next to the place, you know, you make money with them from. Where did financing come from? You raised money or…? Yeah, so this basically, I’ve heard this one before and had a chuckle. I’m glad I can use it once. It’s called the three Fs. Friends, family, and other fools. So I know that. The crazy believers. It was self-financed. We were three main business partners. As I said, I had that Sports Events Management Company.

26:45
I sold it. I invested here with my two business partners. We had a few other friends and particularly one very random person who had booked a wedding in the villa next door. And they were just very intrigued. And so it was about six of us that started six. Okay, okay, okay. So six initial financial partners. Yeah, financiers, but three managing partners. Correct, correct. So you still have the six, or is it only the three now? No, no, it’s a bit more than six. There is a few ways. We did an expansion.

27:27
I think I haven’t told yet, but we originally started with 40 tents and we did have Hemingway Lounge, the Yoga Shala. And so we financed the expansion and we had to assume more. So currently in the business, in terms of equity, there’s only three people or there’s more. No, no, that’s so. In terms of equity, there’s about 10 people. But that’s one of the advantages of the three Fs. If you have friends and family that invest, it’s a lot easier to handle. So we’ve never had any issues. Initial price tag?

28:08
initial price tag on this. you’ve started about…? I think initial was about $2 million. $2 million, yeah. To get started, you added another million or so for the expansion. So yeah. How long did the business take to be profitable? Well, actually it was relatively quickly. So we did, obviously we did build through the pandemic and then we opened in the pandemic. So obviously before Java opened to Bali for travels, it was not profitable. But then once Java opened, it was sort of very lucky that the Indonesians

28:52
really liked glamping. And Jakarta was close to so many things. So we had very, for the pandemic, with very high occupancy rates. And people came here, planning to stay here for two or three days and ended up staying for 10 days. Their kids were doing homeschool. They were able to do this from here. And instead of being in Jakarta on lockdown, they are a lot more… More durable. Yeah, obviously this was very favorable during the pandemic because of the virus being outdoors. Yeah. It’s a lot safer than being indoors.

29:29
So we were profitable within, I would say, six months. So wow. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. I want the same business. I’m in the wrong business. No, no. And I mean, unfortunately, at that time, obviously, we were not allowed to have weddings. But also we sold a lot of weddings after the pandemic ended. And so we also had that certainty that things were going to really pick up once. Sure. Things went back to normal. And when it did, there was such a vacuum of people wanting to get married that the wedding market really exploded

30:06
because they couldn’t get married for about a year. They all had kids during the pandemic. So again, let’s do something about it. Let’s do something. Let’s get married now. So yeah, exactly. So that was good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so you have this one, Nusa, Beach Nusa, in Nusa Dua. And you just open how big is the place? About two hectares. Two hectares. So it is tiny, slightly bigger than here, which is one and a half. How many tents do you have there? 40 tents. So it’s more spacious. More spacious.

30:37
Okay. Okay. Right. And you are… Amazing. Amazing. much Bigger… much bigger restaurant. Everything was scaled up. Okay. Okay. Okay. And you intend to put more tents there or… No. No, we just… We’re just really focusing on the Nusa Dua wedding market. So we have Cliff Top. Our competition there are the five-star resorts. The Ungasan, the Six Senses, which is a part of this nearby, to give people an opportunity to have a high-end wedding, but in a private setting. So you cannot buy out a hotel, a five-star hotel,

31:20
but you can easily buy out a venue like this and then just celebrate with your friends. you’re cheap Yeah. inexpensive. How much does it cost to rent the whole place for wedding? It’s actually… You probably should say cheap and not inexpensive. It’s really cheap. It’s affordable. The entire… To rent out the entire resort, all the tents is just 6,000 euros, so 100 million IDRs. 6,000 euros for one day for the whole resort. The whole resort, yes. And you… I’ll see you then. and you are my slave for 24 hours.

31:56
Sign me in. So yeah. Not expensive. It is not expensive, yes. And then you add the food, you add all those… Right. And then you hire fee to have the event and all that. But the upside is that, especially in European and North American culture, your friends pay for their hotel room when they come to your wedding. So you actually don’t have to pay the 6,000 or the 100 million you end up sending… So you lock it to your… Yeah, lock it. You lock it and then… You get your money back. And especially Australians.

32:27
They all stay here. They pay individually, but they get their wedding and… We do everything in-house. We have in-house planning, in-house catering, in-house… All lighting, sound, everything. Everything we can organize. What’s the published price for a family room, for instance? It’s, I would say, about two and a half… High season. High season. I would say three million rupiah So it’s $200, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so $6,000, 50 tents you can even mark up at your own wedding, yeah? You technically could, yes.

33:04
Let me get married. I’m a friend of… Let me get married. Okay. But you have weddings also that don’t… They just rent the place, like like for events they just rent the place, like the grass area, but they don’t rent the tents, I mean, yeah? We know we… You need a minimum of, I think, five tents. And then we do have non-buyout weddings here, but the issue is then, obviously, you… Because there will be other guests staying here, you can’t party late, right? Yeah. There’s noise restrictions, there’s use restrictions.

33:37
So I would say 90% of our weddings are buyouts. Because last time when I came and I stayed in a tent over there, there was an event, it was a Propertia anniversary or something. My friend Peter, the Propertia is a real estate agent. I know him well. He’s come here, I think, three times already. It’s one of his… Yeah, yeah, yeah. He told me, “I came here and I’m like, what are you doing here?” “Well, yeah, we’re having a party, okay.” And I think this is one of the strengths here, it’s not just weddings, right?

34:06
Like when you have an event like Propertia did, they’re a very fit company. So because the owner is super fit. So they can use the wedding on, not for celebration, but they use for workouts. They have the yoga shala they can do yoga. They can go run on the beach. They can… So you can really do… Oh, they did a lot of drinking. There’s also that, you know. So work hard, play hard, right? Yeah, yeah. And the one in Perth quickly in a couple of sentences, so how big is it? Was really… When is it opening?

34:37
Such an exciting project. So the city of Perth had, or it’s the city of Mindarie, but it’s in Perth, 20 minutes north, had one beachfront land left. And after, it was an old caravan park, and after 20 years or so, they decided to put this up for bid. There were 41 bids, and we were able to convince the city that this glamping concept will be really favorable for the city. And so it took… In Australia, everything takes a bit longer, just like in Europe, it takes a bit longer to get ready, but we are

35:19
just in the process now. Groundbreaking has already happened, and so we are going to open in about one year, and it’s almost exactly the same concept. It’s the same type, tents, it’s the same type size. The restaurant’s a bit bigger and enclosed because Perth gets really, really cold in the… June, July, August. But it’s the same concept, just having weddings, probably mostly from all over Australia. So tents are coming from Escape Nomad? Correct, yeah. So Balinese companies, so you export, you

35:59
help you export the Balinese… They are already… They’re very strong exporters to the Middle East and other parts of Asia. So, Indonesia, there’s quite many… They’re really a fan of the island, all the islands now has a tent resort in Candidasa called Bali Cliff. Bali Cliff Glamping, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah,he bought his tents, so I stayed there, and he bought this tent from Escape Nomad too. All right, cool, interesting. Tell me some stories, some juicy stories. Give me a couple of like biggest hurdles

36:40
that you encountered during the business or the most crazy things that you’ve seen from guests or stuff like that. I mean, biggest hurdle is unquestionably the pandemic, right? Nobody could have known that. Oh, yeah. That the minute we broke ground, Wuhan announced it’s going into lockdown. We just had to gulp and decide, you know what, we’re self-funded, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Let’s go ahead with it. So, we built through the pandemic, we opened right at the time when finally

37:13
Java was allowed to… So, you closed in February 2020? I guess, February, March, we builded in February 2020. We opened in October 2020. Oh, you opened with the pandemic, right? Yes, I remember that. And we really… Potato Head down the road, they stopped their construction, their new construction right during that time. We were sort of wondering why is everybody else stopping construction? They’re much more experienced. We are not even hoteliers by trade, we just kind of fell into this opportunity.

37:48
You guys are frauds. But I think it’s at the end of the day, it’s just like you make a decision and you stick with it. You don’t change lanes all the time. So, what we did is basically probably the leanest pre-opening of any business ever heard of. It’s worth. We even… It’s worth. It’s mostly staff from the villa next door because it was not operating at that time. There were no foreigners to come and stay at that nice villa. So, I think we really… I think we had something like five or six full-time staff at the time of opening.

38:26
Then we just kind of added as we saw fit as we needed. But also the one upside of this was that we ended up from our management, we ended up getting managers from Ayana, from Six senses that would have never come to work for us if they wouldn’t have been laid off during the pandemic. And they all stayed. They all stayed. Even though they have obviously lower salary, they really like the work environment here. Tabanan is sort of like the heart of… Beautiful, yeah. It’s beautiful. Most of the employees are from this area

39:09
within a few hundred meters from here. That has the downside that they are very inexperienced. So, you need to do more training upfront. But it has the upside that it’s really like a big family. So, how many local employees you are… I mean, local, maybe like 100 from the area or as opposed to… Importantly, I don’t know. My guess would be 75% or within 500 meters or a kilometer from here. And only 25% are from… How many employees total? 100. 100 employees, how many foreigners? Knowing no employed foreigners, I’m one

39:48
of the owners, managing director. And so, we don’t have any foreigners working here. Money for industry, taking the money from foreigners and give it to the… Robinhood I am always under the belief that you hire what you need, not where they’re from. And here we have managed to do really well just working with Indonesians. a lot of great talents in Indonesia. Okay, okay. So, okay, tell me the craziest guest story. I wonder if I’m gonna get in trouble with this one. Yeah, we had a, we did have a, the

40:33
craziest story I believe was one. And obviously I cannot name any that were fake names. But no, it was a wedding night gone wrong, so to say. So I received a video on after one of the weddings of where the staff entered the room of the bride and the groom. Why? It was completely destroyed. I mean completely like we’re talking about like rockstars destroying rooms in New York. Yeah. And of things. So there was almost nothing. Every lamp was broken. Why? There was so much, like. But they were still there?

41:17
Well, they were having breakfast, but then they also previously apologized and said they will pay for the damages. So they didn’t like, They knew they did it. They knew they did it. They knew they messed up. What happened? We didn’t ask. They paid for the damages. And also one of my friends, they were staying late here one night when they had a birthday party. And they decided to break into the wine, the wine fridge here at the restaurant while the staff had already gone home. But because they were drunk, they dropped

41:58
two bottles of red wine. So coming here in the morning, seeing, you know, a sea of red, especially with this white Palimanan stone. And again, you know, there was an immediate apology. They had already sent the apology through through the night because they knew they were going to be in trouble. They paid for the damages. So we’ve we’ve that’s probably the two the two craziest stories. And it’s normal, right? You have this resort is for events and events means party and party means people are drinking.

42:29
And some people have drinking under control and some people don’t. So how many people, how many drunk people tried to go and swim? So it says clearly that they’re not allowed to. And we have the pool here. So I would say we’ve never had any issue of people going to the ocean and being in trouble. So so far we’ve been lucky. We haven’t had any serious incidents of that’s good. Okay. I would like to talk about Kedungu a little bit and the role of the glamping of the Bali Beach Glamping within Kedungu and your views on

43:02
where Kedungu is at, where it has come from and where it’s headed. So could you tell me first how like how do you see I mean, you’ve been you’ve been living here for four years and working here for four years. So you’ve seen Kedungu changed. So how does it how has Kedungu evolved since you you started this business? You’ve come you started to come to get everyone hang a lot because I came here the first time six or seven years ago when he invited me to to see Villa Vedas. So Joshua district was already there.

43:39
Joshua district was already there, but really nothing else. There was Joshua district Villa Vedas. There were no other businesses here. There were a few local houses and a lot of rice field. So that’s obviously grown a lot. And the Ciputra Road was already built. The Ciputra Road was already built. It was brand new. So it just started. So it’s not like 10 years ago, maybe something about 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I’ve seen the area growing and I’ve seen what’s developed in Kedungu.

44:15
And for us, so we live here. We live near near here in Baraban. And for us, this is a big advantage because we we love food. And before we had an option of one or two restaurants, we have an option of 10 or 15 restaurants. And I know there’s a there’s like an on the way food store that’s coming. Alive whole food international school. That’s us! all of these things are very, very important. We have a family. I have two young sons and having to go to Canggu for everything is very inconvenient. So having all of these things here, there

45:00
is plans of a supermarket here up the hill. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. I didn’t know about that. That’s through Ciputra. They’re the in plans, again It’s it’s important you built like a Pepito Hundreds of something like that. You’ve been how hundreds of villas, people. Yeah. In the city, 15 to 20 minutes to go shopping, especially if you just need a few few items. So so having having all those amenities will really help. And and I also believe that, you know, the beach club will bring more people, a bigger

45:36
variety of people to this area. And it will also be better known for its its organized road system and master plan. Right. Because Berawa Seminyak is just it’s very, very difficult to find parking. It’s difficult to get through traffic. And having this opportunity to come here and have it have it really with all the wide roads, ample parking and very organized will will be so much nicer for people that they will probably it will probably not be a one time thing. They’ll probably start realizing this is

46:16
the future. You know, now there’s time for for from from here on out to to pre plan these beach areas to make it more comfortable for for guests to come. Yeah, of course. I mean, it was the same thing in Pererenan. I remember when we moved like six years ago, first people were saying, you guys are crazy. Yeah. you’re too far away wich is now a big joke but yeah there was hardly anything there was three restaurants only front cafe wich is now in Kedungu and then couple of restaurants down on the beach

46:51
and yeah there was no facilities, there was no Pepito not even anything so it was a bit complicated it’s always nicer to live in a place where you like you just said you don’t have to go back to Canggu for same stuff So but I believe I mean, with the school we’re building and we also like a shopping plaza in the works. And I believe in I would say two years, everything, everything will be here, which means people won’t need to get out of Kedungu for maybe, okay, if you have to go to the hospital or something.

47:24
And even though that we have a plan on that actually. Yeah, but so we’ll need that much to get out of Kedungu the same way as today, you can stay in Perenan and it’s it’s in rotation. So you can stay there, live there 24/7 365 days a year and and have everything. There is cinema somewhere still. That’s about the only the only reason you’re still going to Seminyak back would be to be for Cinema, everyone in Bali. So you want to go see a movie and that’s about the only. and a Mall, you need a Mall, you know,

47:57
like a little bit of a Zara or whatever. H&M or Uniqlo that’s true. Anyway, okay. So tell me what were the the biggest challenge for Bali Beach Glamping to at the inception of the all even now, what is the biggest challenge of running business, this business in an area that is still like “underdeveloped” and of like we mentioned? You can see that there is a much given the fact that I can’t come up with something right away. I’m really so for me, my biggest challenge at the moment is just the new developments

48:36
because any new takes time. I feel that I’m I have to say I’m I’m barely ever here. I would say I’m here, you know, being the owner and managing director. I have a an incredibly good GM and and and in management team that I’m never really needed for advice. It’s very, very small. It’s very small things that I have to deal with just operationally. So at this point, I have to say the challenges that we had two, three years ago when it was really underdeveloped here, those have all gone away. Right. So

49:19
we’ve so what were the reasons, you know, we it’s like in any relationship. There were some initial struggles, you know, communicating maybe with the Banjar or with the with like how they convinced you suppliers to come out here because we’re far away. And and all of these issues have have gone away. Right. We really now with more logistics than anything. Yeah. Yeah. Really. We’re not we’re not considered in the middle of nowhere anymore. Right. So it’s 10 minutes from from Pererenan. That’s that’s a big which was the

50:02
middle of nowhere before. Right. If you told people five years ago they would have said that. So what what is Pererenan. And now everybody knows. So that’s really helped us. Yeah. Plus, you know, with this is Bali Business Club discussion. But like for me now I’m really focusing on Indonesia. So Australia is handled by my business partner. We do have a project in Thailand in Phuket that we’re trying to get off the ground and another business partner is handling that as well. That’s Tim. So Russell’s doing but he

50:36
Bali Glamping you as well. Yeah. Yeah. I’m thinking as well. So I’m I’m responsible. There’s a project in Lombok that we’re working towards that looks pretty promising. There’s a there’s a project in Balangan Beach. So I and in the beach club. So I handle the developments in Indonesia and my business partners the ones abroad. So do you have a plan like when when do you stop. I think by now the company is is big and successful enough where we don’t necessarily stop. It’s just if we if we have too much on our hands we

51:20
we add more people and you know this. You know you’ve you’ve started a few companies in Bali. And I think by now we wouldn’t want to stop unless it’s not fun or successful anymore. And it still is. So at this point the international expansions they they are there to a certain extent plug and play right. We’ve with the the second resort has been operational only since June. And we already have over 50 weddings sold for next year. We’ve had already. How do you sell them? We have a good digital marketing team that gets the leads and

52:04
in house or you outsource in house in house. in Indonesia in Indonesia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s a very it’s we we have experience right because Villa Vedas has been doing these for six seven years. So we’ve been building this up over time. This reputation too, right? like Villa Vedas is an extremely good reputation of of weddings that that made people I mean it is really sort of unbelievable. But we we sold weddings in Perth For example We just broke ground. We’ve already sold two weddings

52:38
at breaking ground. So we did the same in Nusa Dua. We sold we sold multiple weddings when we had just broken ground. So these people like book a wedding year and a half two years before and it takes nine to twelve months to build. So yeah. So you mentioned Banjar. So a Banjar for those who don’t know what it is the Banjar B A N J A R. It’s it’s a Balinese concept. It’s it’s kind of like the town hall the city hall. So you mentioned that. So I like I’m interested to know when you started and now how is do you

53:22
work hand in hand with the local official with the banjar or the Desa Desa is higher up. What is the relationship you have with those people. Do you guys work together on a day to day basis. I mean day to day often. How does it work? Yeah actually I mean most businesses don’t have to adopt But for a for a hotel in general you tend to be quite quite involved with the Banjar. But us particularly because of the weddings even more so. So yes we work with them daily because when you have a hundred weddings a year.

53:55
That’s almost every third day. And so there’s a Banjar fee. So it’s technically not paid by us it’s paid by the wedding couple because they don’t have an event. And so that covers security that covers parking that covers support as an event. They bring like Pecalang, Pecalang is local guard It’s a requirement even if you have enough parking. It’s a requirement that the wedding couple is not disturbed and and so yeah. So we work with the banjar all the time. And obviously when you have 70 percent of

54:28
the people working from this Banjar then it’s it is not a big banjar right. So everybody it’s everybody’s uncle and then and son and so you have a and son and so you have a full time job with you. Correct. Since you have like one wedding every three days with Bali Beach Glamping with Villa Vedas it’s pretty much like this almost every day. There’s some sort of thing happening. And once you have the at the beach club it’s probably more than more than once a day. So yeah for sure. Yeah. Interesting.

54:58
I wanted to chat about sustainability environments. What does Bali Beach Glamping does for the nature and and all the community? So it’s interesting because, CSR etc I own this sports event management company in America. And I started this about 15 or 20 years ago. Yeah. Sustainability was not a word. Yeah. That was used. Environmental protection was very very in its infancy. And so what we did is we we tried to limited all plastic. And when you have up to two thousand runners in an event it’s difficult to do. But if the

55:38
results are are enormous. Right. Well if you can compost all your waste if you have only paper cups if people are required to bring their cup. So so I did not do it a for a business purpose to to try to attract investors after try to gain more popularity. I just did it because I knew it was the right thing to do. And and so when we started here it was the same thing right. We have no we don’t have plastic in the in the rooms. Everything is recyclable compostable. We have a we have a market farm for all of our food scraps.

56:21
We have a market farm just outside of here. Just there’s a there’s a piece of land outside that creates the compost. We grow compost. The compost is used for the we grow grass here because the wedding lawn takes a lot of beating for the grass. We grow it right outside. We then move it over. We don’t have to import it from Java. We have an herb farm in the restaurant inside the restaurant with the UV light. We grow our herbs here. We source the food locally everything that we can. So I’m not doing this because this you

56:57
know helps with investors or this is always been I have a responsibility. I do things that bring a lot of people to events before it was sports. Now it’s it’s weddings. And when you do that and you do it the right way you can save so much garbage from being produced. So yeah and then we do beach cleaning with so that means it looks pretty clean. You can you can you can you before I arrived. We clean it every day. We clean it every day with my team. So in the morning we work with in the morning and

57:30
then we work with with the. Sungai watch So they have a production facilities here. They make beach chairs out of the ocean plastic. So they collect the beach garbage that we that we collect here. You have furniture here made by Sungai watch? No we do not because it doesn’t it doesn’t fit into our show woods woods design glamping thing. But we we just we we would just work with them to to produce it. So during the rainy season you have a lot of trash coming from the ocean? Yeah correct. Right. Yes. But we have also the
58:07
Sungai watch. You don’t have a river right away. Yeah we do it. The Sungai Watch has the as the rings inside. As you know you can if you have massive storms the plastic comes from other islands soon. So it’s not just from from Bali. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. OK. Interesting. All right. Well thank you very much. I think you need anything you want to add. No that’s it. It was a wonderful wonderful morning and nice discussions. Thank you. It was great to to have a chat with you. Thank you for coming on our podcast

58:45
and letting us do the podcast in the Bali Beach Glamping Thank you very much guys for listening and watching. So today was Roger Michel from Bali Beach Glamping. If you haven’t subscribe here. I always say do this. I don’t know if it’s here or there or whatever. Also it depends if you’re on Instagram on YouTube on all the other Spotify and whatnot. So subscribe somewhere. Leave a comment if you have questions for Roger you can leave a comment we will make sure that Roger will answer in the comments as well.

59:21
Thank you. That’s good. Good to see you again. Yeah. Thank you also. Bye guys.