By Bikramjit Ray
THE MET or Metropolitan Hotel in New Delhi is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2015 with a host of different promotions surrounding the numbers 15. BW Hotelier caught up for an exclusive chat with Sanzeev Bhatia, (see photo) General Manager of Metropolitan Hotel and Spa, New Delhi.
’We are a hotel which is very focussed on the Internet’, Bhatia started off by telling us. In fact, the hotel, in 2014 was awarded for getting maximum revenue by booking.com.
’We were the first hotel in Delhi to have a mobile booking platform,’ Bhatia added, saying that as of now 40 per cent of room reservations were made online, significantly more than the average in India.
So, how was it running a single chainless hotel, we asked him?
’I don’t think there are any challenges as such. In fact, I have been working in single property hotels all my life except for a little bit when this hotel was still with the Nikko,’ Bhatia told us.
A single property is easier to manage; as you are not at the whims of the larger chain you are part of. There is more independence. ’You just need to look after the owners, the customer and the employees,’ he added.
Single units are much more flexible when negotiating room rates for example, he said. On the subject of room rates, we broached the subject of how the future looked.
’There was a price correction in the market, which started three years ago, because of the imbalance of supply and demand hit room rates. The upswing has started and we can expect business to pick up. But, in terms of ARR, I don’t think we can get the rates we were charging in 2004-05,’ Bhatia said.
’The hotel is celebrating 15 years of its existence with a year-long festival which will end on 30, September 2015. This includes a room offer of one night free with every three nights booked and restaurant offers which include meals for 1500 per person plus taxes or of discounts around the number 15,’ Kavita Ghai, Marketing Head of The Metropolitan Hotel and Spa, told BW Hotelier.
Bikramjit Ray is Executive Editor, BW Hotelier.
THE MET or Metropolitan Hotel in New Delhi is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2015 with a host of different promotions surrounding the numbers 15. BW Hotelier caught up for an exclusive chat with Sanzeev Bhatia, (see photo) General Manager of Metropolitan Hotel and Spa, New Delhi.
’We are a hotel which is very focussed on the Internet’, Bhatia started off by telling us. In fact, the hotel, in 2014 was awarded for getting maximum revenue by booking.com.
’We were the first hotel in Delhi to have a mobile booking platform,’ Bhatia added, saying that as of now 40 per cent of room reservations were made online, significantly more than the average in India.
So, how was it running a single chainless hotel, we asked him?
’I don’t think there are any challenges as such. In fact, I have been working in single property hotels all my life except for a little bit when this hotel was still with the Nikko,’ Bhatia told us.
A single property is easier to manage; as you are not at the whims of the larger chain you are part of. There is more independence. ’You just need to look after the owners, the customer and the employees,’ he added.
Single units are much more flexible when negotiating room rates for example, he said. On the subject of room rates, we broached the subject of how the future looked.
’There was a price correction in the market, which started three years ago, because of the imbalance of supply and demand hit room rates. The upswing has started and we can expect business to pick up. But, in terms of ARR, I don’t think we can get the rates we were charging in 2004-05,’ Bhatia said.
’The hotel is celebrating 15 years of its existence with a year-long festival which will end on 30, September 2015. This includes a room offer of one night free with every three nights booked and restaurant offers which include meals for 1500 per person plus taxes or of discounts around the number 15,’ Kavita Ghai, Marketing Head of The Metropolitan Hotel and Spa, told BW Hotelier.
Bikramjit Ray is Executive Editor, BW Hotelier.
