BW Hotelier's Smart Hotels Conclave a Grand Success

By Shantanu Jain THE BW Hotelier’s Smart Hotels Conclave and Expo ’15 organized on December 17 at Radisson Blu MBD, Noida saw a gathering of industry experts, insiders, technology specialists and curators discussing and deliberating on ways to promote intelligent hoteliering. Those who attended as well as technical specialists who kicked off each session, called the event a grand success. Next week will see this website carry all the individual session videos. Watch out for our special newsletters through the week. With eight insightful panel discussions decoding how smart technologies can impact the hospitality industry being the highlight of the conclave. We at BW Hotelier bring you exclusive takeaways from the event. The first session of the conclave titled, ’No longer A Slippery Proposition: Bathroom Tiles Comes of Age’ focused on how have the dynamics of bathrooms in hotels have evolved over the years. Presiding on the panel Reetha Thomas, Executive Housekeeper, Radisson Blu MBD, Noida said, ’Shower cubicles are the latest point of focus in hotel bathrooms today and latest technologies are being brought in to enhance the shower experience to guests.’ She also added as a result of technology usage in hotel bathrooms the job of cleaning which earlier took 25 minutes is now easily completed in 15 minutes. Sareena Kochar, VP Housekeeping, Lemon Tree Hotels elucidated that an important concern for hotel guests today is the amenities provided and thus it is important to ensure that they are non-allergic to all skin types. Vaneeta Arora, Director Housekeeping, The Park New Delhi stated that though providing quality amenities to guests in hotels is crucial it is also important to make sure wastage was minimised by putting them in dispensers. The succeeding session at the event was titled, ’Enriching the guest experience: Next Generation of Room Automation.’ Deciphering on the latest trends of automation at hotels, Prashant Gupta, Hotel Manager, ITC Maurya said, ’The entire idea behind automation is to give your guests the entire control of the hotel thus maximizing convenience. As a practice at ITC, we have one i-Pad in each room so that the guests can avail all the services of the hotel through one medium only. Rajat Sethi, Area General Manager, Radisson Blu MBD responded to the same by saying, ’Room automation has to be operational and be of convenience to guests rather than causing complication. Also technology at hotels has to be operational and economical.’ Ramendra Singh, GM, Park Plaza Noida pointed out that smart phone integration is the latest trend in the hotel industry and is being avidly used at current generation hotels while Abhinav Ajmera from Lutron added that Hoteliers were looking for faster solutions to cut their expenses. However, they need to keep in mind that while we are using advanced technologically they should be easy to operate for guests. Following next, the session titled, ’From Virtual to Real: Managing Communication Demands of the Wired Generation’ led by moderator Noora Warsia, Group Editor Digital Market Asia saw the emergence of interesting concepts of communication between hotels and their guests. Anirban Sarkar, GM Country Inn & Suites, Gurgaon expressed his views on subject by stating that Hotels are only talking about free Wi-Fi today but they are not thinking of how can it be used to provide superior experiences to guests. Rajat Sethi, opined that guests today are well versed with internet and hence a concept of waiting for the room rates to drop till the last minute, called, ’The Last Minute Market’ has emerged. Avijit Arya, CEO, Internet Moguls stated that though hotels have long communicated ’Home away from home’ taglines but no hotel actually provided it. To enable better communication hotels should keep money aside to experiment with technology. The panel discussion on ’Beyond Occupancy: The Future of Revenue Management’-(see photo) featured industry experts speaking about the dynamic pricing model at hotels. Sharing her own example of better revenue management, Karishma Singh, Associate VP, Revenue Management Taj Hotels said, ’We have multiple properties under our umbrella and the secret to better manage revenues is that we collaborate and share group enquiries and discuss room rates and even share business depending on which property needs it the most.’ Chirodeep Chakraborty, Director Global Sales, Carlson Rezidor Group stated that analysis of data is the magic sauce for better revenue management and without it hotels can never improve on this front. Michel Koopman, GM, The Leela mbience Gurgaon expressed his opinion by stating, ’Kill old man pricing and be aware about international pricing to better manage your revenues.’ The next session, ’Taking on the Aggregators: How Technology Can Help’ saw experts discussing the role of aggregators in hotel bookings. Speaking on the importance of aggregators Davinder Kumar, Management and Distribution, Lemontree Hotels said, ’Aggregators are important to hotels as with them we are able to market in areas where we have no reach but they are no competition to us as the ultimate experience of guests is provided by hotels. Avijit Arya was of a different opinion as he added, ’Aggregators need to be understood as they might just be helping us with marketing and sales now but in the future they will also have a say in operational issues of a hotel as well.’ Pradeep Kalra, Senior VP, Sarovar Hotels said, ’Where aggregators can help hotels is the area of revenue management but they will never be able to provide experiences to guests as it is only hotels which have the consumer data insights.’ The following session, ’Business of Saving Electricity’ emphasized on intelligent ways hotels could reduce their power consumption. Speaking on the subject Aditi Balbir, Co-Founder & MD V Resorts said, ’We run small properties and how we save electricity is by diving our property in smaller parts and having different electricity connections for each part so that only that part of the hotel which is being used by the guest has electricity supply.’ Harinder Kishore, Executive Housekeeper, The Leela Ambience added, ’To save power the hotel has to be designed in a saw that it allows more natural light to come in. while Naresh Kumar, GM Purchase, Lemontree Hotels stated that hiring a good consultant during designing process of the hotel is the answer to the question. The final session of the conclave was titled, ’Towards Happy Kitchens: Can Engineers Deliver Delight to Chefs’ and focused on how engineers can create comfortable environment and equipments for Chefs in kitchens. Speaking on the topic, Manjit Gill, Corporate Chef, ITC Hotels said, ’When I started my career kitchens used to be really big but now more area in a hotel is provided to revenue generating spaces. However, the correct decision in this regard would be to not leave the chefs in restricted spaces but design a kitchen as per the rules and norms of safety standards.’ Parvinder Singh Bali, Programme Mnagaer, Culinary Services, OCLD stated that an engineer’s interaction with kitchen only happens in their own homes as a result they are unable to understand the creative process that goes on in a hotel kitchen. For a dream kitchen setting engineers and chefs have to work hand in hand. Photo: One of the sessions in progress. Photo by Shantanu Jain. The author is a Special Correspondent with Everything Experiential.