Hospitality With a Dash of Elan

THE SENSE of space that you get when you enter the lobby of the Pullman New Delhi Aerocity Hotel is rare in most properties in the NCR. Opened just a few months ago, the hotel has been slowly carving out a niche for itself, and things have not yet gotten into top gear, according to Tristan Beau De Lomenie, General Manager Delegate of both Pullman and Novotel properties which are conjoined, “You may say that everything is in place, but I would say both yes and no. It’s been six months of opening and six months of ramp up. We still have a very limited inventory. The hotel will be running with a full inventory by October. This is when things are really going to begin to happen”.

What De Lomenie was speaking off was the fact that only part of his rooms have opened till now and he is actually operating without their superior suites, their presidential suite or the executive lounge, all of which are still awaiting permissions and security clearances to open. The Pullman has a total of 270 rooms, but so far, only 124 rooms are open—99 deluxe and 25 deluxe executive. 

The rooms are decorated in comforting shades and mute tones and have all the usual mod cons you would expect from a five star hotel of Pullman’s stature. At 36 sq. metres, they are also very generously proportioned. The rooms all face the inner courtyard and are remarkably silent for their location near the airport, though at times you hear the distant sound of a take-off, far too faintly for it to affect you. Being a hotel which is really geared towards the MICE business of the city, the Pullman has already been making waves in the first six months of its opening. It had the Google conference in February of this year and the Women’s Economic Forum which took place for a week in mid-May.

Speaking of upcoming business, De Lomenie said, “We have prepared the ground for last quarter of 2016, when we expect to be extremely busy. Our business is lining up now for the last quarter of 2016-2017. We will be entering the RFP (request for proposal) market now. It will start flowing in during the latter part of the year.”

The hotel is perfectly designed for large conferences with multiple rooms for breakout sessions, he added.  

“My main challenge was and is, not having enough rooms. I opened six months ago with a limited inventory without any possibility to upsell to my customer. I don’t have any suites, I don’t have any executive lounge. So, my challenge so far, has been to keep customers from going elsewhere. But we are getting there. We will have the full inventory soon” he said. 

When I asked him whether he was confident of making his targets, De Lomenie quipped, “we will exceed them!”

Food and Beverage is another aspect of the business which Pullman is trying to make a difference in. With the huge variety already available in the market, it’s a tough market to get into, but Ajay Anand, the Director Culinary (I am guessing this is a literal translation from the French of Culinary Director), has a few tricks up his sleeve. The food at the Pullman is definitely tilted towards contemporary modern, whether it’s a meal at Pluck or Honk (which is open only for dinner and serves SE Asian cuisine). While at the Novotel, Anand shared, he was trying to introduce lost recipes as a central theme, a bit away from the run of the mill butter chicken and dal makhni most of us expect. 

“My USP is always the quality of my food. I know presentation is important and so is the decor, but the taste of the food is what matters most,” Anand said. 

It is this eye to detail and quest for authenticity which has made Anand pick and choose his 203-strong team for kitchen and KST. 

“I have someone who makes just biriyani and nihari. So, any biriyani or nihari you get in the hotel has been made by my one specialist. Similarly, I have four chefs from Rajasthan on my team. So, if you order laal maans, they will be making it,” he told us. 

But the thing that he is most excited about is working on the farm inside the hotel complex, which is about 5000 sq. feet and is used to grow herbs and vegetables. Anand envisions a place inside the farm area, where he and his team can prepare a special culinary experience for a limited number of tables, around 10 or 12 covers. All this, of course, once the summer heat has abated and the weather cools down. Using local on the table is also something very dear to Deepak Malhotra, the chef and Culinary Designer in charge of Honk the hotels dinner only (for the moment) South East Asian inspired restaurant, which serves food from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Japan.

It is the food which is a great help when it comes to the actual selling of the impressive banqueting space at the Pullman, according to Karanbir Singh Gulati, Assistant Director of Food & Beverage, Pullman New Delhi Aerocity. There’s lots of space to fill.

“In terms of banqueting, we have 50,000 sq. feet of space. We can do a theatre style seating of about 1500 easily. We also have 14 core meeting rooms--used in breakout sessions during large conferences—which vary from 800 to 1200 sq. feet,” Gulati began. Of course, all the rooms have all the modern bells and whistles associated with banquet and conference facilities from drop down screens to mini bars and of course butler service when you step out, something which is much desired in India.

Even though the hotel opened in November and missed the season in 2015-16, they have done fairly well he added, and the upcoming season looks good. “April was very good. Banqueting did 150 per cent over the budget we were expecting. For the first year, we are looking at Rs 48 crore for both hotels in F&B. It’s very doable, with the kind of product we have here and our seating capacity--Food Exchange at Novotel is a 150 seater restaurant, Pluck is 150 seater while Honk is 120 seater,” he said. 

One of the things that the Pullman is trying to do is adding a little difference in their products. The Sunday brunch at Pluck for instance, has an art theme, with local artists showing their wares. It also features a jazz band and some exclusive champagne from the house of Devaux.

“We did really well in the first brunch. We had around 30 to 35 paid customers, that went up to 50 in the next week and then to 80 already. It’s very encouraging,” Gulati added. The thing that gets Gulati really excited are the possibilities of that the wedding market holds for the hotel. 

With its location, according to him, the Pullman is slap bang next to the traditional farm house areas usually used in weddings, but the added advantage that it has is five star food and service, even people from West Delhi are slowly coming around to the idea of having their functions in the area, according to Gulati. People realise that the quality you get at a five star when it comes to these aspects of a wedding, there is no competition, he felt. “We are in an area which is already overflowing and we are bigger in terms of space than anything the city has seen. The hotel has been built with large conferences and big weddings in mind,” he added. The number of luxury weddings happening in the city is massive, with some hotels doing as much as half their 70 to 75 crore F&B turnover from weddings, according to him.

The response so far has been very heartening according to Gulati, “With their strong banquets kitchen under Chef Balakrishnan, the head Indian chef, we’ve got it covered,” he said.

But a hotel does not run on food and beverage alone, the business traveller nowadays needs to really find an easy way to detox, and as a French hotel brand, Pullman, obviously has a leisure facilities which are the newest in the area and with a stamp uniquely its own.

Woo spa, is based on two pillars: de-stress and detox, Ram Chatterjee, Director of Spa at the Pullman New Delhi Aerocity, told us. This is in line with the Pullman’s work hard and play hard ethos. The spa, which is a common facility with Novotel, has eight treatment rooms (one a couples treatment room) and a special area for quick fixes for those who don’t have an hour to space, where you can have a quick 15 or 20 minute short treatment, Chatterjee explained.

“A lot of our guests are business travellers. They are constantly travelling sometimes four to five days a week. This affects their sleep as well as their health because of weather and cuisine changes. We have kept these two particular elements in mind when we built the spa,” he said.

Another unique concept about to be introduced is a ‘Run with our Employees’ concept where guests are met every morning outside the hotel gate by an employee and familiarised with the different running routes within the confines of Aerocity, he said.

The hotel has reached its mark in many aspects and we are sure, once the executive lounge and suites are operational, it will take an already great product to even higher levels of excellence.