On Boxing Day 2004 Ho Kwon Ping, founder and executive chairman of the Banyan Tree chain of luxury hotels and resorts, was in Mexico when he received a phone call from the other side of the world. It was his general manager in Phuket. 'He said: "There is this huge wave coming!" Then there was silence,' Ho recalls.
Ho turned on the BBC but found that news of the Asian tsunami was yet to break. Then the phone rang again. It was his GM in Sri Lanka. He told the same story - a huge wave, heading his way, about to hit. It was not looking good for Ho, whose properties were dotted across the Indian Ocean. The next call came from the Maldives; more followed. By the time the tsunami had passed, nine of Banyan Tree's 20 or so resorts had been struck.
Although Ho was insured, the wave had longer-term consequences for his company: the year following the tsunami 'we suffered because nobody came', he says. In that year occupancy rates dropped from a typical 70 per cent to 20 per cent and Banyan Tree made a loss.
Ho points out that since its foundation in 1996, Banyan Tree has made a profit every year except 2005. Last year, Banyan Tree Holdings - which owns the 21 resorts, 58 spas and 68 'retail galleries' - was floated in Singapore. It was sold at Singapore for S$0.97 a share. The shares are now worth S$2.83; the market capitalisation is S$2.2bn (about £730m). That is the free float - Ho owns the remaining 50 per cent of the business.
As you would expect given this background, Ho looks at home in the Savoy, where he holds court on his frequent visits from his Singapore base to London (though he stays in a flat nearby). He cuts a suave figure in suit and open-necked shirt, talking on a range of subjects from the pros and cons of colonialism and the legacy of Sir Stamford Raffles in Singapore to the impact that the travel industry is making on the environment.
Ho lapses into marketing-speak when he describes what has made Banyan Tree successful. 'If I can get you to go with your partner to a Banyan Tree you have created memories of your own there. It is an emotional response you will remember forever.' It is hard to listen to, but he probably has a point. He means that Banyan Tree resorts do not aim to offer plain luxury. Ho says, for example, that there is no point in giving solid silver cutlery where plate will do. People go for the locations, and the feeling of being away from everything.
Ho, who started out in a Chinese trading family in Singapore, has become one of south east Asia's most prominent entrepreneurs. He studied at Stanford University but was suspended for joining a protest against the Vietnam War in 1972, when he was 20, and did not graduate.
He continued his studies at the University of Singapore and now notes, sardonically, that Stanford has him as an alumnus 'for fundraising purposes'.
He moved on to work as a journalist on the Far Eastern Economic Review until 1981, when he joined to the family business, which he describes as a 'typical mini overseas Chinese conglomerate'.
Ho's family was part of the diaspora that has built up in south east Asia through emigration over the past two centuries. He is straightforward about the reputation the Chinese have in places like Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. 'The Chinese were ethnically quite distinct from the rest of the population. They were called the Jews of south east Asia. Over a long period of time they became very wealthy.'
However, despite decades of apparent success, Ho believed that by the 1980s the typical overseas Chinese business model was outdated. His diagnosis of why the 'mini overseas Chinese conglomerate' was failing fixed in his own mind that he was going to leave the family firm, and determined the kind of business he would set up when he did.
He says: 'The overseas Chinese business model - as most of them were engineered in the Seventies - was in trying to be the lowest-cost producer in terms of contract manufacturing for Western companies. In our family business, we did TVs for Mitsui, shoes for Nike, engineering, construction. We had businesses in Singapore, we had a business in Thailand and so on. The essential weakness of that model is that cost competitiveness is only a comparative advantage. When cheaper countries come in you are running to keep up.'
In the early Nineties, Ho had the jolt that made him change course. 'I had a real wake-up call. There was a business I started that was a sneaker contract manufacturer. It started in Thailand and in 12 months I closed it down. Indonesia was making sneakers more cheaply.'
The question then was what to do next. Ho says: 'I thought about it and realised there were two kinds of [business] advantage. There is competitive advantage, but that is comparative, and there is proprietary advantage. There are two kinds of this: technology - I am not technological - or there is a brand.
'I made the decision to build a proprietary brand and I was casting around looking for a candidate.' Banyan Tree, in other words, started as a brand in search of a business. So why hotels? The choice was a 'fluke', says Ho.
It transpires that in the Eighties, Ho and his brother had invested in land in Phuket, which they subsequently found to be partly contaminated as it was the site of an old tin mine. Nevertheless, he and his brother built several hotels there managed by other groups - Sheraton and Dusit, the Thai group, for example. Ho believed that there was space at the very top of the market for places that gave the 'emotional' response he likes to describe. So he started Banyan Tree in 1996.
More than a decade on, Ho believes that the business is secure because the brand is strong, not just in Asia but across the world. He says a third of customers come from north Asia - Japan, Korea and China - a third from Europe and the US and a third from the rest of the world. The next big geographical push will be to expand its presence in China.
Ho says: 'We are in the process of starting our own private equity fund. We are raising $500-700m from institutional investors that we would use to add to our existing hotels in China. The fund will be used to develop properties in China, exiting in five to eight years' time. [Eventually] the properties would have full management agreements with Banyan Tree.'
His ambition is to keep the business growing. He believes that there are few successful Asian-grown brands beyond examples such as Samsung, Hyundai and Lenovo, the Chinese company that has moved from building cheap computers to focus on its brand.
At the moment, he is still fighting with his insurers to get his hands on $38m dating back to the tsunami. Ho says he has had close encounters of another kind too: from private equity funds wanting to buy into the business. He has refused. Why? He pumps out what sounds like a rehearsed line: 'Because I don't play golf.'
Ho believes that the global economy is at a point of flux. 'America has the sensibility of the colonial power, but how will the balance change? Is it Iraq that will have triggered it? I am very interested to see what the US will be in 100 years' time.' Perhaps his next goal will be finding out if there is a way to live that long.
The CV
Name Ho Kwon Ping
Age 54
Educated Tunghai University, Taiwan, Stanford University, California; University of Singapore
Career Journalist on Far Eastern Economic Review until 1981; joined family business the Wah Chang Group (construction, clothing, consumer goods) until 1996; founded Banyan Tree hotels group, now executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings
Family Married to Claire Chiang and has two sons and a daughter