RAJEEV MENON, Chief Operating Officer, Asia Pacific (Excluding Greater China), Marriott International (see photo) spoke exclusively to BW Hotelier during the launch of the Renaissance Hotel in Lucknow about the group’s plans in India and what the future looks like.
Read More
THE FIRST phase of 100 luxury villas at the Blue Ocean Resort and Spa in Ganapatipule, -Maharashtra, turned operational with the property opening 55 villas and suites for reservation. The resort owned by Mumbai-based Omkar Properties and managed by The Pebbles, is spread across 80 acres.
Read More
CHOICE HOTELS International, Inc has introduced a new identity that is rolling out worldwide. The refreshed brand positioning and new identity builds off of Choice Hotels' 75 year legacy as a gateway to a portfolio of brands. It also reflects the new direction and growth of the company as it realizes opportunities with business travelers across the portfolio, particularly in the upscale segment, and among millennials.
Read More
By Bikramjit Ray YOU COULD call Somnath Mukherjee a Taj faithful. He’s been working for the company, which he joined, back in 1992 as a management trainee and has no plans to leave, from what he told BW Hotelier. In fact, one of the first memories of a Taj General Manager (GM) he has was that of his first, Shirin Batliwala, ’I remember her in a red saree writing down details about me with her red Natraj pencil,’ Mukherjee tells us. But then, he is a trove of memories about Taj Bengal, where he worked from 1992 till 2006. But Mukherjee lets us into a little secret, ’I never thought I would be a hotelier. After school I was trying for my joint entrance exam and my father wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer like any other Bengali boy. Somehow I landed in Hotel Management College following one of my seniors. I was very fortunate to get selected on campus for Taj Bengal’. Ask him and he is adamant, ’I belong to Taj Bengal or Taj Bengal belongs to me.’ Mukherjee claims to be the only person he knows who worked as manager of every single restaurant at the Taj Bengal and remembers the time when he oversaw the renovation of the iconic Sonar Gaon restaurant in 2004. ’It was soon after that that I won the FHRAI award for best restaurant manager,’ he said. It was also then that he shifted out of restaurants as into butler service. ’Mr Abhijit Mukherji who was then the COO advised me--if you want fast track growth, you need to move out of restaurants and into to butler operations. I as also working side by side as an assistant F&B manager then,’ he tells us. This was when he got another break when Taj Bengal’s then GM, Taljinder Singh (who is now Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai’s General Manager and Area Director) moved him in 2006 to the Umaid Bhawan Palace in Udaipur as F&B Manager. What Mukherjee landed in was a hotel more like a shell, in his own words. It was just after the group had taken the property over and the restaurants were not furbished and the staff were ’hard to train’. ’I thought that the company had sidelined me,’ he confessed, before of course his determination showed and he decided to embrace his assignment. It was with the help of his then GM Sanjay Umashankar (now GM of Vivanta by Taj President Mumbai), he began to get into his own. It was also his luck which saw him organise some of the most high profile events of his professional life: Liz Hurley’s wedding with Arun Nayar and the Vogue launch in India. ’I was the F&B Manager then,’ Mukherjee recalled, ’I was in every day in touch with Liz Hurley and Arun Nair. They would come every month and I would sit with them. It was great exposure for me’. The three day event stretched his team but also taught him the importance of logistics and planning, as did the 450 sit down dinner for Vogue’s launch also at Umaid Bhawan Palace. ’Doing a 450 people sit-down dinner in Bangalore or Mumbai is very different from doing it at Umaid Bhawan Palace. You don't have anything. No Staff, no manpower, you have to assemble everything from outside from all over the country, beg, borrow, request,’ he remembered. But all this meant he also got his just rewards, a promotion to EAM at the hotel and then a transfer to Varanasi as GM of both the Taj Gateway and the Nadesar Palace Hotel. ’This was in 2009, when they were opening Nadesar Palace. I was in charge of both the Gateway Hotel as well as the Luxury hotel. Nadesar Palace gardens were overrun with trees and creepers like a jungle and full of snakes. It was not like the award winning hotel that you see now. In two-and-a-half years, that I was there, every year, we got the best hotel award from the group,’ he says proudly. Soon after he did a short stint as GM of the Rambagh Palace in 2012 for 11 months, which Mukherjee claims is the most fantastic hotel he has worked in. ’It was a dream hotel. I will still say, I was at the peak of my performance as GM of Rambagh Palace. What a fanastic set of HoDs, I had. It gave me an in-depth lesson on what luxury service and quality was really about,’ Mukherjee added. Mukherjee’s move to his current position as GM of the West End in Bangalore, was because of various factors, including his family. His pride in his product hasn’t diminished one bit though. ’The performance of this hotel in the last one-and-a-half years has improved significantly in every parameter-- guest engagement scores, staff engagement scores, profit of the hotel, revenues,’ he. Finally we ask what makes a successful GM? ’Your Staff. You can be given the best hotel of the world. If the staff is not with you, you cannot survive. My strength is my staff. I have great ability to motivate my staff. Because I have come up the ranks in Taj, I know their pains, their issues, I know what they want from the management. I can hit the bullseye. I know what they are trying to say, even if they are not saying it,’ he concludes. The author is Executive Editor of BW Hotelier.
Read More
By Bikramjit Ray RAJ RANA, Chief Executive Officer, South Asia at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group spoke to us about the company’s views on India and its prospects in the coming year. We began our conversation with what makes Carlson Rezidor’with 71 hotels in operation in India, with another 45 under development (see chart below)’different from others? The single biggest differentiator for Carlson Rezidor worldwide is relationships, began Rana, ’we are a privately held company not accountable to the stock market. Our decisions are based not on short-term quarterly results. We give a lot of weightage to long-term relationships. That is our strength in India as well’. He gave the example of the company not losing a single hotel during their renewal. ’Even in a marriage, you can imagine the stress and strain after ten of 15 years, and yet, our owners choose to renew with us. They also have multiple hotels with us and it is through them that we get leads and references for business opportunities,’ he added. Rana continued by saying that the corporate structure was fairly flat and each and every owner had a relationship directly with the business head and of course the entire team. ’I think it is the most remarkable thing about Carlson Rezidor at large and particularly in India, where relationships that a different significance altogether,’ he said. With seven brands worldwide’Quorvus, Radisson Blu, Radisson and Radisson Red, Park Plaza, Country Inns by Carlson and Park Inn by Radisson, the company has all of them except Quorvus in India. ’We introduced Radisson Red and Quorvus to India in April and I am pleased to say that for Radisson Red, we have some very good initial interest as well as some prospecting going on. -We have just had the ground breaking ceremony for our first Radisson Red in India in Mohali,’ he announced adding that Radisson Red is a brand which is well positioned to ensure that the bottom-line of the owners is enhanced while guest experience is more geared towards the millennial mind-set, which in India covers a large part of our population. Quorvus by definition, is not a scale brand, he told us. It is a brand which lends itself to retaining its individual identity and yet provide luxury elements. ’We hope to find some conversions like palaces and forts for this brand. The brand profile is right at the top of the pile, which will broaden our reach to a certain segment of the market’, he said. Speaking on the market situation in India right now, Rana began by saying that 2015-16 has been better than what the company had imagined. ’We were thinking that this excess supply is going to totally destroy the market economics. But the excess supply is being absorbed. The indication is that demand is still rising, albeit not at the same pace as occupancy. Due to this growing demand, occupancy has found legs,’ he said. ’In our portfolio and in the industry, occupancy has inched up. This includes cities like Delhi, with excess supply. In the business, once occupancy finds legs, rates will follow, so we feel that in the coming year, rates will start gaining some foothold as well,’ he further explained. This is very important because falling rates has caused owners and brands a lot of heartache because rates drive margins. ’As far as Carlson strategy is concerned, we are going into markets where there is no international operator. We have always believed that we have a first entrant advantage. So, for example when we go into a market like Indore, Nagpur or Guwahati, we immediately get into a fortress position because we build a quality hotel which raises the very standard in that market. We are able to reap the benefits of this strategy for years to come till competition arrives and the profile of the city goes up,’ Rana stated. ’We are finding that although supply side is heavy, there are plenty of markets where there is a critical shortage of branded rooms. We are actively looking for prospects in Ranchi, where we already have a hotel; in Patna and in tourist pilgrimage destinations like as Bodh Gaya, Tirupati, Madurai and Rameshwaram,’ he added. A brand is nothing but a set of standards and the experience expected, Rana told us. Because a customer's opinion of a brand is based on the expectation of consistency, India is a bit of a challenge for most brands, he said, going on to explain why--’All hotels in Asia Pacific are at a higher level, no matter which international brand you are. It causes some operating burdens. Even a mid-scale hotel like Country Inns, ends up being a full service hotel because of customer demands and that puts a strain on the labour’, he explained. With improved connectivity and infrastructure, the move to go into secondary and tertiary markets and aiming the brand towards the upwardly mobile classes in India was going to pay off for the group, Rana hinted. The author is Executive Editor of BW Hotelier.
Read More
By BW Hotelier AFTER SELLING off its Kovalam property in 2011, Hotel Leelaventure Limited (HLVL), announced it has entered into a Business Transfer Agreement (BTA) to sell The Leela Goa to Malaysian company, MetTube Sdn. Bhd. (MetTube), subject to regulatory approvals and specific conditions being met. Ceres Hotels Private Limited (Ceres), a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of MetTube, agreed to acquire the Goa property for a total consideration of Rs 725 crores. The Leela Goa would be transferred to Ceres by way of a slump sale under the BTA subject to satisfaction of certain conditions precedent, including regulatory approvals. HLVL will continue to manage and operate the property and the hotel will continue to be known as the The Leela Goa’. Commenting on the transaction, Vivek Nair, Chairman and Managing Director, HLVL, (see photo) said, ’The disinvestment of the Goa Hotel and retaining the management of the hotel under the Leela brand is in line with our strategy to restructure our debt, follow an asset light strategy and manage more hotels.’ Raghav Mittal, President and CEO, MetTube, said, ’This investment signifies the group’s confidence in building and growing businesses in India. As a group we are very proud to have been able to diversify our business lines and make a useful contribution to the Indian economy.’ JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited acted as the sole financial advisor and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas acted as the sole legal advisor for HLVL. Ernst & Young acted as the sole financial advisor, Khaitan & Co. acted as the Indian legal advisor and Wong & Partners (a member firm of Baker & McKenzie International) advised on Malaysian law for MetTube.
Read More
By BW Hotelier THIS YEAR’S edition of the 2015 Hotels in India Trends & Opportunities report by HVS, brings forth a fair measure of cautious optimism. In marginal contrast to last year's publication, the report asserts the view that while the Indian hotel sector has indeed seen growth in both product and performance, it has come in a paced and moderated fashion. One could even draw comparison to the way the newly formed central government began its tenure in 2014 on a high note, and though its one-year performance has not been spectacular per se, it has been steadily moving in the right direction. The report draws attention to the under tones of hope, optimism and positivity in the previous publication; since then, the nation’s hotel sector may not have found reasons for exuberance, but it has certainly been witness to a year that outpaced the preceding one on various fronts. An essential driver of growth, the Indian travel and tourism industry has emerged as a significant employment generator, a major source of foreign exchange and an integrating factor for the local and host population. The industry has registered prominent growth over the past few year, supported by the rising purchasing power of the traveler, increase in commercial development and foreign tourist arrivals, a growing airline industry and impetus from government-led initiatives. In 2014, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the GDP was Rs 7,642.5 billion (6.7 per cent of total GDP). This is projected to grow by 7.5 per cent in 2015, and eventually reach Rs 16,587.2 billion (7.6 per cent of total GDP) in a decade's time, according to World Travel & Tourism Council's Economic Impact 2015 ’ India report. In keeping with the outlook presented in the previous edition of this report, the nationwide RevPAR performance was recorded at Rs 3,324 in 2014/15, a sound growth of 1.5 per cent over that of the preceding fiscal year. The nationwide weighted occupancy (60.3 per cent) of hotels grew by 3.4 per cent, corresponding with a marginal decline of 1.8 per cent in the weighted average rate (Rs 5,510). Individually, each star category registered a year-on-year increase in RevPAR, with the hotels in the three-star category recording the highest growth of 3.5 per cent. The improvement in RevPAR is clearly occupancy-led, as the weighted average rates have either declined or remained almost stable across all categories. The existing rooms supply tracked by HVS in the organized hotel market grew by 11 per cent in 2014/15 over the previous year totaling to 112,284 rooms as of March 31, 2015. This takes into account 9,588 new openings during the year, and the rest are an expansion of the sample set being tracked by HVS. The pipeline for proposed supply totaled 114,466 rooms in 2007/08. With a 139 per cent growth in existing supply since then, the proposed supply was down to 56,270 rooms at the close of 2014/15. Concluding the report, HVS continues to emphasise the shift towards the mid-market and budget segments across markets. While on the subject of budget and economy hotels, it would be a fallacy to not discuss the development of hotel aggregators in the budget space in the year 2014/15. Recognising the massive unorganised hotel market, companies such as Oravel Stays (OYO Rooms), Zostel Hospitality (Zostel and ZO Rooms), WudStay, FabHotels and Treebo have partnered with standalone hotels and guesthouses in order to provide marketing, distribution and quality assessments to them. Riding on the back of technology and providing App-based convenience to the consumers, these new-age brands intend to consolidate the unorganised hotel market. The report has been authored by Achin Khanna, MD of Consulting and Valuation at HVS South Asia and Hemangi Bhandari, Associate ’ Consulting and Valuation with HVS New Delhi. The survey was conducted across 872 hotels with a room count of 1,08,452 in 2014/15 across India. HVS - 2015 Hotels in India_ Trends Opportunities
Read More
By Rashmi Pradhan REAL ESTATE company, Arun Muchhala Group forayed into hospitality with the launch of their vegetarian 4 star property, The Byke Suraj Plaza in Thane, Maharashtra. The property owned by Arun Muchhala Group will be managed by Byke Hospitality (which manages properties in Goa, Matheran, Jaipur and Manali). Speaking exclusively to BW Hotelier, Suraj Muchhala, MD, Arun Muchhala Group, said, ’We already had a strong presence in education, real estate and entertainment (Suraj Water Park). This was the next stage--providing accommodation for guests at Suraj Water Park. That is how the idea of The Byke Suraj Plaza was born. There are hardly any big branded hotel in this area. With huge banqueting facilities, we aim to cater to weddings, social functions, corporate events and the IT sector. The investment here is approximately Rs 85 crores.’ ’We were approached by many domestic and international brands, but we wanted to adhere to our philosophy of serving only vegetarian food to our guests in the hotel. The Byke Hospitality operates complete vegetarian hotel and that’s how the marriage between the two companies happened,’ he added explaining the choice of hotel operator. Mihir Sarkar, Vice President, The Byke Hotels & Resorts, told this reporter, ’We have been operating hotels in leisure destinations, The Byke Suraj Plaza will be the first business hotel for the group. We have over 100 sales and marketing offices across India that take care of marketing. With banqueting space for between 200 and 1000, we are aggressively looking for corporate and social events. We have only two categories of room, single and double occupancy. The initial tariff is Rs 6,000 for single occupancy and 6,500 for double occupancy with 25 per cent discount.’ The 122-room property, located on Godhbunder Road, has a 24-hour multi-cuisine restaurant, banquet facilities and a sports bar (see photo). The swimming pool and spa is in the pipeline. Spread over 150,000 sq ft, the versatile indoor and outdoor space features state-of-the-art banquet space with separate double height ceiling banquet dining area. ’Our group has an old connection with Thane, right from Maharashtra’s first theme water park (Suraj Water Park) to educational institute (Muchhala Polytechnic College,, Thane has always supported all our initiatives. Thane is fast emerging as a cultural and business hub with a budding IT establishment, companies experience the influx of international visitors and there is a disparity between the demand and supply of hotels here. We aim to cater to this disparity and create an iconic landmark,’ Akshita Gandhi Muchhala, MD (Hospitality), Arun Muchhala Group explained why the group decided to set up the property in Thane. The author is Assistant Editor of BW Hotelier.
Read More
