We have ensured over-communication with the guests: Reuben Kataria

Hospitality and F&B community are in pursuit of finding answers to questions on the revival of the sector, workforce support, laying off resources and impact of the pandemic. The Covid-19 situation has taught hospitality leaders and experts that going touchless will help them revive their business operations which continue to loom in the dark due to the hurdles such as lack of customer engagement and high operational cost.

Reuben Kataria, General Manager at the helm of JW Marriot Hotel, Bengaluru talked about driving employee engagement and creating enriching customer journey at the ninth WebBlast organised by BW Hotelier on ‘Going Touchless’ which featured various influential hotel personalities who have changed the hotel scenario in this Covid-19 situation. 

While the pandemic continues to become a roadblock to the growth for the people in hospitality and F&B industry, Kataria believes that they witnessed a new cycle in the few days before the lockdown hit them. He said, “We became very clinical about the Covid-19 situation and wanted to provide maximum safety.”

In this era of the new normal, there is a dearth of proper communication and deluge of misinformation. Speaking on this, Kataria said, ‘We as a hotelier go extreme.’ Elaborating further he shared that the hotel has laid a clear communication protocol with the guests. “We have decided that we ensure to over-communicate with the guests because they want to know everything at this time. We make sure we communicate with the guest in terms of the room and how we are keeping them safe. We want to provide the safest scenario to the guest. We have also had times when the guest was in direct touch with the chef,” he added.

Delving into conversation on creating a healthy workforce engagement, Kataria said that various cricket matches were organised at the premises to keep the team motivated and engaged. Talking about the hotel-turned-quarantine-centres he opined, “Today we are in an institutional quarantine business, earlier there was a stigma and now it’s all about the running the ship at the end of the day.”