We now have a Korean-born but internationally exposed general manager at a five-star super-deluxe hotel in Seoul for the first time in many years. He is Mr. Lee Jong-hoon with an English given name, Jay, and the property is the Millennium Seoul Hilton sitting snugly on the picturesque western slope of the Namsan Mountain in Seoul. (See pages Xx for further details.)
This writer recently interviewed Mr. Lee with his tourism editors, which was perhaps the first time in many years for him to do so with a Korean general manager.
There were many things meriting a full-fledged interview—at least for The Korea Post media, whose main area of coverage had a lot to do with the diplomatic community in Korea as well as foreign relations.
His father is a seasoned Korean diplomat who made a vice minister at the Korean Foreign Ministry, who served as Korean ambassador to Germany, Italy, Ireland and many other countries.
Mr. Lee also has a brilliant record of outstanding performances as a hotelier working at big-name five-star hotels, including Hotel Shilla of Korea’s top jaebeol business conglomerate, Samsung. At Shilla, Lee successfully accommodated a number of VVIP guests of the world, including Presidents George Bush of the United States, President Vladimr Putin of the Russian Federation and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan.
The Korea Post media fully covered Mr. Lee with all its five media outlets, including www.koreapost.co.kr (Korean) and www.koreapost.com (English).
Apart from the story of GM Lee, the Millennium Seoul Hilton has a number of advantages over other 5-star hotels in Seoul in terms of convenience on the part of guests attending the Embassy functions such as those on their National Days, diplomatic relations anniversary days with Korea and various other events.
“At least, we don’t have to pay the 2,000-won toll gate fee at the Namsan tunnel,” said one Korean celebrity who said he had a rule not to miss the diplomatic functions when invited.