The social media storm that followed an in-house circular asking staff to help clean Galaxy Macau’s Grand Resort Deck was the result of “a big misunderstanding” based on interpretations of the word “volunteer,” according to senior Galaxy staff.
In an interview with Hong Kong’s Bastille Post, Galaxy Entertainment Group’s Chief Operating Officer Kevin Kelley and Assistant Senior Vice President of Public Relations Buddy Lam revealed that the clean-up was in fact considered high priority due to safety concerns in the wake of Typhoon Hato and denied accusations they had been seeking “free labor” in order to get the pool deck operational for the benefit of guests.
“Considering potential dangers and safety issues, we emailed our colleagues who were on duty to partake ‘of their own free will’ which was misinterpreted by some colleagues as ‘free labor’,” explained Mr Lam. “There’s a difference between ‘volunteer’ and ‘free labor’ but it is one and the same word in English.”
Explaining the company’s motives for expediting clean-up of the Grand Resort Deck, Mr Kelley said it was purely a safety issue.
“Because there was another typhoon coming, we needed to get the resort deck cleaned up as quickly as possible from all of this loose debris that could potentially fly around, push through windows, break into hotel rooms, fly off the hotel deck and hit people in the streets,” he said. “We knew it was a very dangerous environment that needed to be fixed very quickly.”
Typhoon Hato, which struck Macau on 23 August, was rated the worst storm the city has seen in 53 years and caused around MOP$11.5 billion damage according to latest government figures. It was followed on 27 August by Typhoon Pakhar.
The in-house circular was sent to employees on Friday 25 August requesting volunteers between 10:00 and 17:00 that weekend to “help clean up the Grand Resort Deck so it can be reopened to the public as soon as possible.”
The circular quickly went viral on social media, attracting more than 25,000 negative reviews on the resort’s Facebook page and seeing its rating plummet from 4.8 stars to 1.0.
“We have upheld our business integrity,” Mr Kelley said. “Unlike what the criticism claimed, our decision wasn’t made based on making more profit.
“It was a big misunderstanding.”
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