Pol Charoenpong

Khun Pol (pronounced Pon) Charoenpong has spent almost all of his working life in the very same place, although he has actually worked for a number of different companies. The ownership of the Hotel and Resort has changed several times and it has expanded and been lovingly renovated over its more than a century of history. Like the brick and teak buildings, Pol’s dedication to what is now the Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas, Hua Hin, has stood the test of time.

Pol is now 67 years old.  He was born, raised and schooled in Hua Hin and has lived and worked here his whole life.  Pol does not hold a passport and has never travelled outside Thailand, though he has had many job offers from hotel guests, most of them European, who would love to “poach” his services. However, despite how attractive and lucrative the offer, Pol has an unbreakable bond to Hua Hin, and a highly commendable loyalty to his employer and is unable to imagine himself living anywhere else, his two children and his 11-year-old grandson being at the very centre of his daily life.

Pol has seen some huge changes to Hua Hin in his lifetime, not all of them for the better, in his humble opinion.  Pol reminisces about a time 30 or so years ago when the beach was cleaner and there weren’t the traffic congestion issues that holiday periods cause on Phetkasem Road.  Yet none of this diminishes Pol’s belief that Hua Hin is the best place in the world to live.

Born into a family of four children, two sons and two daughters, Pol had an instant connection to the railway as his father was a station employee. Pol’s mother worked only at home: caring for her husband and four children kept her a busy woman.  One of the benefits of his father’s job was that Pol had unlimited access to the Royal Hua Hin golf course that was adjacent to the station, and Pol could be found regularly practicing his golfing skills from the age of only six or seven. Pol claims not to have been a dedicated student, being much more interested in sporting than academic pursuits. Pol left school at 16 years old, his first job being as a teller with a bank which no longer exists.  It provided a regular pay check but it was clear to Pol that working in a bank was not his passion. During his late teenage years, Pol was a bit of a rebel.  He was part of a gang of youths who would hang out together at the beach or the temple, drinking whiskey and getting up to mischief. 

By the time he was 19, Pol had secured casual employment in the hospitality industry, with the Railway Hotel, and this is where he has built himself a sterling career. Pol’s entry position saw him engaged as a houseman, tasked with collecting used linen from guest rooms, transporting it to the laundry and distributing the fresh linen. Not a very exciting job, but Pol understood he had to start at the bottom and work his way up. Within a year or so, by 1974, Pol’s position was permanent, allowing him to marry his girlfriend Gulab, whose name means lotus flower in Thai. Gulab and Pol were both 20 at the time and had a happy marriage, raising a son and a daughter together, until she sadly passed away in October 2023.

The Railway Hotel, which had its grand opening on 1st January 1923, was eventually rebranded in the 1980s to become the Hotel Sofitel Central Hua Hin, and then was again rebranded as the Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas, which it remains till this day. The Centara has a proud history in Hua Hin, which is matched by Khun Pol’s career trajectory. Pol transferred from houseman to waiter, to captain of the waitstaff, to restaurant supervisor and then to restaurant manager as his skills in dealing with customers grew and were recognised by his various employers. At each step, Pol relished his job, working in a very beautiful environment, seemingly in no particular rush, enjoying both the tranquillity of life and the respect of his work mates and superiors.

Pol is a happy man with an infectious smile who takes life as it comes.  He is satisfied with what he has and what he does, and doesn’t appear to have a hankering for anything more. Pol’s serene disposition and attention to detail, while innate, marked him as eminently suitable in customer service roles within the hospitality industry, and Pol excelled. Pol is blessed with the ability to quickly establish interpersonal relationships with hotel guests, calling on his almost encyclopaedic memory to deliver the smoothest of guest experiences.

Actually, Pol retired from his position with Centara some 12 years ago now, when he turned 55. But Centara can’t do without him, and he was invited back to work on contract by the General Manager in the newly-created role of Guest Relations Manager in a part-time capacity.  Pol works five days a week, from 7am to 1pm, across the months of September to March each year, responsible for the guest experiences of Centara’s VIP guests.  Pol admitted that his children are regularly imploring him to give up work, but Pol finds great enjoyment and ongoing energy in what he does, and the tips he gets from guests, 90% of whom are European, are nothing to be sneezed at!

Pol’s role is to maintain the exemplary standard of hotel service to its VIP guests, many of whom have known Pol for 30 or more years, as they annually visit Hua Hin to avoid the worst of the European winter.  Pol has seen guest’s families grow up and have children of their own.  Although he is a humble man, Pol did confirm that he has been told by guests that they will only book to return to Centara the following high season if he is going to be there. Pol is a figurehead for Centara, a constant that the regular guests both expect and demand.

The reason for this is that Pol observes and files away a significant amount of information about each regular guest.  He knows minutiae such as their tea preferences, which is their preferred alcohol/water/pillow and breakfast dish. Supervising other staff members, Pol is able to ensure Centara’s VIP guests have a truly relaxing and seamless holiday experience. It is in Pol’s nature to want to exceed expectations. Pol believes his greatest achievements are the reputation he has amongst guests and the trust that is shown him by hotel management.

So, with 50 years of service to the hotel under his belt, where to now for Khun Pol?  The answer seems to be more of the same. Pol has no desire to learn anything more, or do anything different.  He relaxes and manages his family home of five people across the year, being the one who gets up early to go and buy food for the family for their first meal of the day, Pol’s personal favourite being Thai rice soup with fish. Like many Thai households, the vast majority of the family’s food is bought from local vendors in plastic bags. In high season, Pol attends work at Centara in a smartly-pressed staff uniform and takes lunch in the staff canteen.  High season or not, Pol commits time from around 3pm each day to exercise in an attempt to maintain his health. He stopped drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes 30 years ago, and these days is conscious of his sugar consumption as well.  Food in the evening is usually limited to fresh, seasonal fruit. Pol lives a modest life and is not interested in accumulating material possessions. He does like following European soccer though and cites Tiger Woods as the living person he most admires.