Category: Hospitality

Indian Hotels well positioned to capture higher market share, says Puneet Chhatwal

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Hotels announced a strategic Rs 4,000 crore deal with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC to acquire fully operational hotels. With regards to fourth quarter numbers, the operating leverage finally kicked in for the hotel chain. Finance cost was lower while other income further boosted profit after tax.

Throwing more light on the deal, Puneet Chhatwal, MD & CEO, Indian Hotels said: “It would be prudent to say that you will hear from us in a month or two because we are in the process of putting up a team together which will analyse possibilities on the market. Also in our drive to monetise some of our own assets, that we have shortlisted some which we will be sharing with GIC very soon.”

When asked about Indian Hotels’ plans for raising funds for these acquisitions, he said it would via 50 percent debt and 50 percent equity. “In this platform, we will be investing over two years and it would be around Rs 200 crore investment from Indian Hotels per annum, which would come in from internal resources by monetising assets that we already have today, which would directly flow into this platform to acquire more strategic assets and keep building our brands further,” said Chattwal.

The beauty of this platform is that we would have a simple management contract for each of these assets. Our income would be derived from two sources – we will be wearing two hats, one is that of a manager on asset-light model and sharing whatever residual income is left on a 70:30 basis, he said.
With regards to debt, he said the company was on a constant drive to reduce debt. With regards to debt required for these acquisitions, he said it would be in a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and not on Indian Hotels balance sheet. Our debt to equity or debt to EBITDA has come down from 6.5 to 2.17 for the full year results, he said.

Margin expansion for the company would come via growth, he said. “We think Indian Hotels with its brands, the Taj brand specially is well positioned to capture a higher market share and also take advantage of any tailwinds that we get on the average rate scenario,” said Chattwal.

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Sheraton Hotels’ new concepts will make you work at the hotel lobby itself

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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I’ve spent about one third my life in hotel rooms for the past few years, and while they all look the same, there are nuanced differences in each and every brand I’ve stayed at. For instance, at a Four Points, I expect to get a room, but at a St. Regis, I expect to get a room with a butler, and at a Doubletree by Hilton, I always expect to receive a cookie at check-in. However, one of the most well-known brands in the business, Sheraton, somehow, started to become a generic name not to be identified with anything but their brown carpets. With 450 hotels around the globe, that is a lot of brown carpets.

A few years ago, however, about the time of the merger of their parent company Starwood, with Marriott International in 2016, there was a new plan coming up to rejuvenate the brand. Sheraton intended to move away from their staid looking hotel and lobbies, to catch all the latest trends and adopt to the newest way of working and travel.

So, they zeroed down on the millennial business traveller, and formed a new look and feel for the hotel, one, where the hotel would be at the centre of the community it exists with. First steps, a new logo was unveiled, with arrows pointing inwards to show the intent I just wrote about.

But how do they do this in reality? Business has been conducted in the hotel lobbies and lounges for a long time, deals have been made and so on. And Marriott concluded that the lobby was the place to reinvent to make the Sheraton brand connect with the future. The new Sheraton concept takes a lot of inspiration from co-working and cafeterias, as it wants to appeal to the millennial workforce to live and work with them.

The redesign will focus on public spaces, and will have collaborative venues, a technology-enabled design, personalised. A host will be around to help deliver the experience. The critical aspects of the new design include:

• Productivity Table: The community table comes through, as the productivity table with functionality such as plugs, charging stations, wireless mobile charging, and so on, but it also will have lockable drawers. You can work, or eat/drink at these tables all by yourself, or with other people.

• Studio Spaces: Smaller open team workspaces, furnished with technology and tools to allow for small meetings and collaboration.

• Coffee Bar Bar: Coffee Bar Bar may sound like a Hindi name, but no, it’s English. The new Sheraton coffee shop, as the name reveals, intends to be a coffee bar serving breakfast in the morning, and transforms into a cocktail bar in the evening. You should be able to do a grab-and-go or get them to serve it up to you at the bar, or your table. You should also be able to order via mobile.

• Community Manager: The community managers will have a tablet that will allow guests to have service and information provided to them at their fingertips. These community managers will roam the lobby to assist with reservations for public spaces and food and beverage and other requests.

There will also be a lounge area, which is a smaller, flexible space for one-on-ones and so on. There will be private booths, soundproof spaces that allow their occupants to make audio/video calls in privacy. Sheraton guests should be able to book these public spaces and order food and drink through an app at each property.

In India, Sheraton is already moving forward with bringing these changes to the Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield hotel, and we should be able to live and work in the same hotel in the coming months. Over the years, you will see this concept rolled out to Sheraton hotels across the world.

But Marriott is not the only hotel chain to have caught on to the trend. Accor Hotels is making big moves as well, not by integrating the hotel and the co-working spaces together, but by creating separate co-working spaces under a new brand.

Co-working is here to stay, and I’m glad that at least someone is putting their money where their mouth is, which means, soon, you will have the coffee shops being back to coffee shops and business travellers can just step down to the lobby to get work done.

Ajay Awtaney is a business travel and aviation journalist based in Mumbai, and the founder of the Indian frequent-traveller website Live From A Lounge (www.livefromalounge.com.) Ajay flies over 200,000 miles every year, and tweets about The Business of Travel at @LiveFromALounge.

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Taco Bell signs Burmans as India master franchise, eyes 600 outlets in 10 years

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Mexican cuisine chain Taco Bell, a part of Yum Brands Inc, on Wednesday announced Burman Hospitality as its master franchise partner in India, with plans to open 600 outlets by 2029.

Taco Bell, which currently has 35 outlets in India, also expects the country to become its largest market outside North America in terms of both restaurant count and revenues going forward.

“In terms of restaurant count India today is set to be one of our top three markets outside the US. In the near term, as we move forward India stands to move up as in terms of being one of our largest markets, in terms of restaurants count and potentially in revenues as well,” Taco Bell International President Liz Williams told PTI.

Bullish on the Indian market, she said, “Today we don’t release separate revenue figures for the international business for specific markets but with that kind of growth you can imagine the revenue contribution.”

Taco Bell currently operates 500 restaurants nearly across 30 countries outside the US.

The expansion plans for Taco Bell in India have been timed to ride on the growing awareness of Mexican food among consumers here, she further said.

“We feel like it is the perfect time…Consumers are becoming more aware and they have the interest and appetite to try Mexican cuisine. We think it is a great fit with the Indian consumers, coupled with brand positioning together with the Burman group,” she added.

Taco Bell had entered India in 2010 and opened six stores. Later on, it partnered with the Burman family.

Elaborating on the expansion plans, Burman Hospitality Director Gaurav Burman said, “We are building one new store every 10 days. At the end of the year you will see us go past 60 stores and then we will continue to build progressively after that.”

The chain currently has presence in 11 Indian cities and by the end of the year it will have presence in 16 cities, he added.

(Image Source: Taco Bell, Twitter)

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Legendary hotelier PRS Oberoi says no business leader can avoid these three things

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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PRS Oberoi, executive Chairman of EIH Ltd, the flagship company of The Oberoi Group, is one of the legendary hoteliers of India. Popularly known as ‘Biki’, Oberoi spent his entire childhood growing up in hotels that his father MS Oberoi acquired and managed.

Oberoi Junior has helped his father build from scratch the iconic Oberoi hotels in New Delhi and Mumbai. He also led the push to build super luxury hotels in Jaipur, Udaipur and Agra.

The Oberoi hotels are known for their striking architectural designs in luxury hospitality. Today the group also runs the five-star business hotel chain Trident and employs over 12,000 people.

PRS Oberoi has always maintained that he doesn’t want his group of hotels to be the biggest, but he certainly wants it to be the best.

In 2013, when he was 84, he demitted the CEO’s office to close aide SS Mukherjee. Now, Oberoi’s son Vikram runs the group as CEO. But at 89, Oberoi is still very hands-on with building and expanding his hotels business.

Oberoi says there are three things that entrepreneurs must do to succeed.

One, see people who work with you as the biggest assets.

“You can build the best hotel in the world, but unless you have good people working in the hotel, you will not succeed,” he told CNBC-Tv18 in an interview.

It is with this in mind that the group started the Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development.

Oberoi reiterated the importance of entrepreneurs to train their own people to succeed. Entrepreneurs must select their people carefully, train them properly and keep them motivated, according to him.

“When I am involved in planning all the new hotels that we are building and I find that the most exciting thing is sitting with the various consultants and telling them what to do if I see an error.”

Two, don’t think of cutting costs. Instead, try to cut waste, he said. He recounted an anecdote to drive home the point.

“I was in one of our hotels and I found towels were not absolutely white. So when I came back I asked the person concerned what was wrong. We use a light meter to see the whiteness of our towels and this hotel was not using the white meter. Our average wash for a towel is 125-130 washes after that we discard them.”

Oberoi found that the laundry department in that hotel was not doing what it should have done.

“The devil is in the details,” he insisted.

Third, business leaders must have a passion for what they do. “If you don’t have passion, don’t do it.”

It is these crucial pieces of advice that he has given to his family and employees.

This interview was held in May 2015 as part of the India Business Icons Campaign to mark CNBC-TV18’s 15th year of leadership in business news. The India Business Icons Campaign is an endeavour to form a distinct league of the most powerful business icons that people of the country think have had a monumental impact not only on their lives, but also on the Indian economy.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow