IHG’s Chaobella Restaurant Brand Set to Go Places From Crowne Plaza Okhla in New Delhi

By Sourish Bhattacharyya IN THE SPATE of financial results declared by major international hotel chains last week, all of whom reported rosy growth figures lifted by America’s sterling economic performance in the last quarter, India hardly ever figured in the much-awaited conference calls of their CEOs. The only exception was IHG-InterContinental Hotel Group’s CEO, Richard Solomons, who announced that Chaobella, the Italian-Chinese restaurant that has had a good run at the Crowne Plaza Okhla will be ’developed’, possibly for a rollout across the country. Solomon pointed to the uniqueness of the Chaobella experiment. It serves the two favourite foreign cuisines of the Indian market ’ Chinese and Italian ’ at the same venue, so you can have dim sum and pizza in one outing. Interestingly, he mentioned Chaobella in the same context as Cai Feng Lou, IHG’s signature Chinese restaurant, which will see a global expansion into 50 hotels. Is Chaobella also likely to go global? Nurtured carefully by the former Crowne Plaza Rohini, Barun Jolly, Chaobella has won the hotel several awards. Jolly’s successor, Raju Shreshtha has now to take this legacy forward, especially since his global boss is so gung-ho about it. Solomons, as reported by Skift.com, made two important points relevant to hoteliers worldwide, apart from fine tooth-combing the financial results. (1) IHG, he said, had identified breakfast as one of the ’biggest opportunities to improve the guest experience.’ Keeping this market reality in mind, IHG has introduced a new food and beverage training around breakfast. (2) Social media reviews are another important tenet of the changing guest experience, but the IHG twist to the story is to get its guests post reviews on the company’s own websites. ’Social media has led to a huge number of experienced travellers posting online about their experiences in our hotels which help shape consumer sentiment and behaviour,’ Solomons said, adding that InterContinental had collected more reviews on its hotel sites in 2013 than TripAdvisor had for all of the company’s hotels. ’This highlights the greater relevance for guests and potential guests of reading reviews from experienced and brand loyal travellers,’ Solomons is quoted by Skift.com as saying. The company’s web revenue has gone up by 30 per cent and its mobile revenues by 85 per cent in the last three years, highlighting the need for and impact of the group’s digital initiatives. Sourish Bhattacharyya is Consulting Editor, BW Hotelier.