Northstar

22 | www.travelweekly-asia.com GAME CHANGER FROM ONE COMPETITIVE WORLD TO ANOTHER At 14, Jacqueyln Chan became the first Sarawakian to bring home a gold for Malaysia during the XIX Jakarta SEA Games in 1997. She won for synchronised swimming, a sport she said taught her discipline, strength and versatility. Today, she is in a partnership that brings those same attributes to the competitive world of budget accommodation. Chan recalls her swimming days with fondness although it was no 'The Hip and Happening' Jacquelyn Chan goes from synchronised swimming gold medallist to co-founder of a hostel group, albeit with a few twists and turns along the way. Here, the one-time Singapore Girl shares her career journey with Yeoh Siew Hoon. hostels and hotels under the brand Rucksack Inn, and is now expanding into themed-hotels and adventure experiences under the brand The Rucksack. Chan wasn't just content to be a star in the water though – she wanted to fly the skies as well and her first job in travel was as a Singapore Airlines stewardess. "I always wanted to travel and I dreamed of being a Singapore Girl," she said. "I learnt all about customer service – airlines really are the best trainers when it comes to delivering customer service." It wasn't all fun though. The hardest part was waking up early in the morning to get dressed and dolled up for work, which often took an hour or more. "But I loved the long-haul flights, they took me to places I had always dreamt of," she said. Chan was speaking on stage at Tern, the first travel careers event, organised by travel editor Yeoh Siew Hoon, and held at the Novotel Clarke Quay. The one-day conference is aimed at inspiring young people to join travel and to keep travel professionals fresh, relevant and motivated to enjoy long and enriching careers in the industry. Her next job was an unexpected twist – she took a marketing communications job in an audit firm because she feared she may become irrelevant if she flew for too long. "I am a very risk-averse person and I wanted to know that I was still employable in the corporate world," she said. After a high-flying job, the new role was a bit of a comedown experience for the young executive. It was during a period when she was seeking more excitement that she went to a dance party at Pork Dickson, Malaysia, and ran into Samantha Chan, who eventually persuaded her to join her company as co-founder and COO, The Hip and Happening Group. "I wouldn't have taken the risk without Sam," said Chan. "I am an entrepreneur by association. Sam runs the marketing and business development, I take care of the operations." Between the two of them, they have created a truly hip and happening business – in 2009, they opened their first Rucksack Inn at Hong Kong Street (38 beds) and the year after, they expanded by renting another unit and became one of the pioneers of the backpacker culture in Singapore. In two years, they had grown to a 220-bed hostel chain. It was in 2010 that the group scored a major public relations coup when Chan was persuaded by Samantha to enter Singapore's first reality customer service competition, 'Can You Serve?' "I was very nervous, and I didn't want to enter actually, but I was told it'd be good PR for the company and as each week went by and I was still in the competition, I thought, 'hey I could win this thing'." And she did. The grand prize was SGD$100,000 (US$73,671) of which $70,000 (US$51,570) was in cash and the balance in skills and development courses. From there, the pair opened Rucksack Inns across Singapore and recently The Hip and Happening Group took over an existing budget hotel, moving up the scale of customer needs. The group is now managing hostels, hotels and an outdoor adventure business in Singapore and Malaysia. Its property outside Singapore is in Malacca "because we couldn't afford anything in Singapore, and we saw the potential in expanding our footprints regionally", said Chan. Called The Rucksack Caratel, it's themed as a caravan park hotel and offers interesting communal spaces for its young customers – such as the pool, caravan park, cafe and the sound stage. While Chan reiterated her aversion to risk in her career choices during the talk at Tern, it is clear her approach of taking calculated risks and combining that with discipline and resourcefulness has taken her far. As she concluded, "The bitterest lessons come from experience, the easiest by imitation and the noblest by reflection." Jacquelyn Chan. easy feat. "We had to wake up at 4am for training, and we needed to have skills of a few disciplines for this sport – being a strong swimmer, being flexible like a gymnast, and being graceful like a ballerina. We also had to make our moves look effortless." She is now the COO and co- founder of The Hip and Happening Group, Singapore, which runs budget accommodation of The bitterest lessons come from experience, the easiest by imitation and the noblest by reflection.

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