'It's About Creating Awareness that Mysore has Much More to Offer'

A seasoned hotelier with over 15 years of experience, Sachin Malhotra, the General Manager of the newly opened Grand Mercure, Mysuru, has worked across a broad spectrum of hospitality functions including sales and marketing, relationship and management contract, finance and human resources. He joined AccorHotels in 2009 and has held leadership positions across various locations, the most recent being the role of Hotel Manager at Mercure Lavasa and Lavasa International Convention Centre.

Prior to joining AccorHotels, Malhotra was the head of catering sales and conference services at The Leela Palaces and Resorts, Bangalore.

Malhotra holds a diploma in Business Administration and Marketing from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune and has also been certified by the India Leadership Development Program by AccorHotels.

Malhotra spoke to BW Hotelier at the launch of the Grand Mercure, Mysuru.

What are the challenges that you are likely to face in the first year?

The biggest challenge that I personally feel we will face is to get the relevant crowd to understand the difference. Most of us when we go out to an international destination do a lot of research on what to see and do. But when it comes to an Indian destination we feel we already know about the place. We don’t need to do any research. For instance, when you come to Mysore you know of three things that you want to see and you plan your itinerary accordingly. But when you come down here and we tell you that actually there are 21 things to see and do, you don’t have time.

Creating awareness that Mysore has much more to offer; creating awareness that there is a hotel that is working hard to provide you all those offerings on a platter; and reaching the target audience is probably the biggest challenge that we are going to face.

Mysore is the second most visited destination in India for tourists after Agra, as per official records. They come visit the palace, see the lighting and move on. However, the real content of Mysore, the real artwork of Mysore is somewhere down the line not being exposed. So our biggest challenge is to bring that visibility to Mysore and to bring that acceptance that there is a brand in Mysore that is looking at all this and creating a difference.

With a lot of online travel agents coming into the picture the rate has become a parameter for selecting a hotel but we want our brand to be the parameter for selecting the hotel rather than the rate.

What is the rate going to be?

Our inaugural offer starts at Rs 7250 inclusive of one main meal for our standard room. Thereafter we have 5 categories of rooms with a differential of Rs 2000 depending upon what category of room you are looking at. Our highest category is the deluxe suite which comes with a bedroom, a living room and a balcony. That will be priced at Rs 14,500 inclusive of breakfast and one major meal.

Who is your target customer?

We will look at MICE but primarily an experiential visit rather than a huge banquet with a DJ night.

Mysore attracts a lot of French, British and German tourists and now new markets are opening up in China and Australia. We also get a lot of domestic tourists from metros over the weekend. Business is also expanding in Mysore so we will target business travellers as well.

What are your staff requirements? Have you hired local talent?

We are looking at a staff of around 190-200. In the first phase we have employed around 130 in the ratio of 60:40 with 60 being local people from Mysore. We have not poached staff from our competitor hotels. We prefer fresh talent whom we can train in the Accor way of hospitality.

What numbers are you targeting in the first year?

We are opening right in the beginning of the holiday season. Then we will have monsoons, then Dashhera and after that the international tourist season so we are quite confident that with our efforts we should hit about 40-45 per cent occupancy in the first year itself.