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Ho Kwon Ping is the co-founder and executive chairman of Banyan Group.
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Growing up, Ho Kwon Ping did not think that he would become a businessman, let alone a hotel tycoon.
“I didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur,” he said CNBC Make It. “It’s just that the few times where I started working for other people, it didn’t really work… I’m quite individualistic. I became an entrepreneur more for the lack of other ways.”
Today, the 72-year-old is the founder and executive chairman of Banyan Groupa hospitality company with a portfolio of 12 global brands, more than 80 hotels and resorts, with spas, galleries and residences spread over more than 20 countries.
A view of the sunset from the Mandai Rainforest Resort from Banyan Tree.
Courtesy of Banyan Group.
The company, which is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, brought in about $328 million Singapore dollars (about $242 million) in revenue in 2023. Banyan Group has a market capitalization of SG$300 million, according to LSEG data.
The years of training
Ho shared something about himself that some may find surprising: he was incarcerated in his youth.
He said his early life was largely defined by a strong zeal for social activism.
While working toward his degree at Stanford University in the early 1970s, he was an unknown student activist against the Vietnam War (also called the “American War” in Vietnam).
He joined other protests on campus – in particular, one against the American inventor and physicist William Shockleywho ultimately suspended him from the institution.
“I was kicked out because of my assistance with the Black Student Union, a protest they had against a guy named William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for the creation of semiconductors, but who also had a vision strange about eugenics. He wrote several books saying that Blacks should be sterilized,” Ho said.
As a result, Ho was tried in a campus judicial court and found guilty of suppressing academic freedom, thereby suspension from the university. Later, he decided to leave Stanford and returned to Singapore, where he completed his national service and resumed his university studies.
“I had to start from scratch and it was really boring, so I started writing as a freelance journalist [for] a now-defunct magazine called the Far Eastern Economic Review,” he said. “I started writing about Singapore politics, which the government didn’t like. Therefore, I was imprisoned under the Internal Security Act for being pro-communist.”
That was in 1977, and he was put in solitary confinement during his two-month prison sentence – a time he described as “scary, lonely, depressing and reflective”.
Ho Kwon Ping and his wife, Claire Chiang, in 1992.
Courtesy of Banyan Group.
After his release, Ho rejoined the magazine as a reporter and moved to Hong Kong with his wife, Claire Chiang. The newlyweds moved to a small fishing village on Lamma Island called Yung Shue Wan, which translates to “Banyan Tree Bay”.
“It wasn’t paid very well, so I couldn’t afford to live on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon … so we had no choice but to live on Lamma Island,” Ho said. “Although we weren’t rich … we had three very idyllic years there.”
Ho was born in Hong Kong and spent most of his childhood and adolescence growing up in Thailand before moving to Singapore. His father, To Rih Hwawas a businessman who co-founded the Thai Wah Public Company and led the Wah Chang Group, conglomerates with operations throughout Asia.
“Even though my parents were pretty good, I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and wanted to be independent and stuff,” he said.
An accidental entrepreneur
In 1981, Ho’s father had a heart attack. As the eldest son, Ho takes on the responsibility of taking over the family business.
“This business was a true microcosm of overseas Chinese companies, meaning a jack of all trades but master of zero,” Ho said. “We had about 10 to 12 different businesses from construction to contract manufacturing of televisions … even Adidas shoes, and so on.”
After several major failures and lessons in running the family business, Ho had an epiphany – rather than running a “bunch of businesses”, he wanted to focus on building his own brand.
“I decided then that contract manufacturing is not a long-term solution. You need the customer, and you can only do it by owning a brand or owning a technology, and I’m not a technologist, so I decided that we had . to own a brand,” he said.
When the “light bulb went off”
The stars aligned when one day in 1984, Ho stumbled upon a vast piece of coastal land in Bang Tao Bay in Phuket, Thailand. It has decided to buy the tract of more than 550 hectares, which has become an abandoned tin mine, according to an official statement of the company.
After years of restoration, Ho worked with his wife and brother—who is an architect—to design and develop several hotels and resorts on the property. Laguna Phuket, Asia’s first integrated destination resort, was opened in 1987, according to the statement.
“We designed the first hotel, and we managed to get a Thai company to manage it. A second hotel – Sheraton managed it, and third and fourth and so on,” said Ho. “And then the last piece of land had no beach [so] no one wanted to manage.”
“That was when the light bulb went off, and I said, Well, since no one wants to manage … why don’t we start our own brand?”
An aerial view of Banyan Tree in Phuket, Thailand.
Courtesy of Banyan Group.
To make up for the lack of a beach, Ho decided to build private villas with a pool for each.
“This was 30 years ago, so the notion of an ‘all-pool villa’ hotel didn’t exist…we also pioneered the ‘tropical spa,'” he said.
In 1994, the luxury resort of the “Banyan Tree Phuket” group opened its doors, including the first Banyan Tree Spa – a name inspired by the happy years that Ho spent with his wife in Banyan Bay Tree of Hong Kong.
“Innovation doesn’t fall from the sky … it was a response to a need,” he said.
In 2006, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited debuted on the Singapore Stock Exchange, and in 2024, Banyan Group was launched as an umbrella brand for the multi-brand portfolio, according to a company statement.
“People have asked me if I’ve sold or not, and I’ll say, ‘No, I’ve grown.’ The kind of things I did, you can’t keep doing them forever. You’ll go to prison permanently, and you’re still not effective,” Ho said. “But what we want to do in terms of social change, I think we’re actually doing for Banyan Tree.”
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