On the face of it, the picture doesn’t seem pretty. India’s hotels and restaurants are seeing just 20 to 30 per cent business of what they used to get before COVID-19 hit. Hotel business hinges a lot on travel, and aviation statistics show that only 52 per cent of flights were flown in October. Uncertainty on the jobs and economy front is also another reason for the reticence for patrons to throng their favourite restaurants or head to a resort, in addition to the fear of COVID-19.
But when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And despite the fact that the hospitality industry has been one of the worst hit by the pandemic (up there with the airlines), out-of-the-box thinking by hotel chains have seen many adopting unconventional, if effective, new growth models to tide over the present crisis.
It started with turning themselves into long-stay centres for multinational officials who were stuck in the country, to even COVID-19 doctors and nurses (some hotels were drafted in for this purpose by state governments). Some of them continue to have large chunk of doctors staying on and attending hospitals nearby.
While there is optimism that the festive months of November and December could see more guests making a return, hotels are not hitching their wagon to just a hope. The new moves include taking their experiences to the customers, a la Mohammed and the mountain, as well as offering deep discounts as well as vouchers for future stays.
First of all, luxury hotel rooms are going for a song in most Indian cities. Take New Delhi’s five-star deluxe Taj Palace hotel, overlooking the green expanse of the ridge and usually known for hosting international statesmen and business tycoons. Today, you can book a room at the flagship hotel for just over Rs 4,000!
And it’s not an exception. Super luxury hotels like JW Marriott and Shangri-la all come for just around Rs 5,000, while the starred property Novotel Aerocity, owned by the owners of Indigo airline, offers fares around Rs 2,000 rupees. “The star hotels are actually giving us mid-level and budget hotels a run for our money,” said a senior official with a pan-Indian hotel chain.
COVID-19 has turned a lot of conventional hotel industry truths on its head. Normally, business hotels in big metros rule the roost, fuelled by business visitors and bulk corporate bookings. But now, it has seen the trend of ‘revenge travel’, of people driving out for a vacation at a hotel property near enough to drive, leading to leisure and destination properties suddenly going up in popularity.
Many leading hotel groups have reported bookings going up in resorts situated around, or within driving distance from Delhi NCR for example, like Manesar, Neemrana and Bhimtal. Bookings are solid at tourist hot spots in the north like Jaisalmer and Palampur.
Ironically, business hotels in smaller towns are seeing more business than in the metros, especially in states with lesser COVID-19 figures. “Surprisingly, business hotels in tier two and tier three cities have seen a growth,” pointed out Nipun Vig, vice president (operations) with Sarovar Hotels and Resorts, which has 92 properties in the mid-level and premium segments across the country. “Smaller cities like Jhansi, Gorakhpur, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, with some like Jhansi doing even better business than what they used to do before COVID-19.” The new ‘customer is King’ is not the multinational executive or a private sector bigwig, but more likely to be officials in public sector companies, besides individual travellers looking for a break at a place in or near their own homes.
With restrictions on travel, not to mention number of attendees, weddings is another opportunity, though for different reasons. “While earlier people in smaller cities also wanted to go and do their weddings in a larger city (or a destination wedding), now they are okay to do it in their own towns,” said Vig. That has meant better business in small town hotels, in quite a reversal of formula.
With most people not ready to dine out, many hotel chains have come up with measures, some which they used to snootily pooh-pooh till recently. Taj hotels, for example, launched an app called Qmin where guests can order dishes from the F&B outlets of the hotel, while many others finally got listed on food aggregator apps like Swiggy. Many others now do ‘DIY kits’ of restaurant grade ingredients which would be delivered home, while some even organised social media gigs or classes online. Sarovar group’s DIY food kits also came with a recipe and a live video call facility with their chefs, who would instruct the guests on the proper cooking process.
And at restaurants at leisure properties, where there is a rush, it is a whole new way of dining—tables and chairs are kept apart, with some marked with ‘Do not sit’ signs. Menus come with QR codes, and even at buffets, dedicated waiters wearing protective gear take the required food item on request and serve it at the table, to reduce crowding at the buffet counters. Most items, from dals to other dishes, now already come pre-portioned at the buffets, making it easier to maintain the safety protocols.
Novotel Hyderabad Airport hotel, as reported by THE WEEK earlier, even organised patches of grounds for guests stuck in the hotel during the lockdown to play gardener! “The pandemic gave us an opportunity to innovate and engage with our customers through newer avenues,” said Kerrie Hannaford, the India head of Accor, the world’s second largest hotel chain, to which the Novotel brand belongs.
Interestingly, some hotels are going beyond their bread-and-butter of rooms and restaurants, for getting some precious revenue their way. “Hotels are supposed to be the most hygienic place, even before COVID-19 hit. Since we specialise in this, we have actually started giving services of sanitisation of work and commercial space, and homes, too,” said Vig, “It’s a completely new field of revenue generation. We are seeing some traction there.”
Hoteliers know the road ahead will be tough, so any sort of innovation that brings in some moolah counts. City business hotels without enough guests are offering schemes like take a room to ‘work-from-home’ at peace, but call in the rest of the family once the work is over to have a fun activities and dinner, all offered in attractive all-inclusive packages. Many are also offering discounted bookings for summer vacations next year if you book and pay now, anything for that extra revenue to surmount the present cash crunch.
“Recovery is a very, very slow process. We are actually limping back,” said Vig, but there is optimism galore. “As travel routes and borders open up, we are seeing customers slowly yet surely starting to travel again,” said Ramesh Daryani, vice president (global sales - Asia Pacific) of Marriott International. In fact, Marriott and Accor, along with travel firm SOTC, are actually planning physical roadshows this weekend for guests who want to travel. As Vig remarked, “Our industry is known for its resilience!”