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Top of the week to you.
The generational shift in Indian hospitality is coming in to its own. A few days ago, I met Ritesh Dang, a young hotelier whose pragmatism is an indicator of how local thinking differs from the international companies.
Dang is working with the same set of rules and challenges as the big brands, yet his target for 30 hotels by 2015 of his home-grown Celebrations brand felt realistic. So I asked him why 30 and not 300 as is the norm for expansion announcements these days. To which he said: “Let’s be realistic, 30 operating hotels is good achievement from a standing start. Brands take time to build, the West has taken decades.”
A generation of mid-thirty hoteliers have come of age over the course of my decade plus career as a journalist. We all succumbed to the grand plans in the early days because we believed that a big international chain was declaring a target only because they could achieve it.
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Let’s also take Satyen Jain of Pride and Keshav Baljee of Royal Orchid. You probably know their names because these two have been popping up in trade articles and events of late. Jain and Baljee are second generation hoteliers, where the first generation is still leading the way. Yet beyond the company plans, they have begun to find their own direction, which is beginning to shape their fathers’ big picture.
The Biznotel is Jain’s project while Baljee is keystone to project delivery and also revamping his erstwhile Peppermint brand. Behind the scenes and off the record is an army of late-20’s and 30-somethings making their own mark. Some will work with the big brands, though an overwhelming number want to set up their own thing, in their own image of what an Indian hotel should be. Some will be in the metros, the majority will be in the interiors.
At this point, it is good to bring up Mithil Pitre again, the newly minted hotelier in Devrukh, West Maharashtra. Check out my October ’09 op-ed on him.
And it is going to be a true Indian hybrid. Lookout for hand showers, Hindi communication, Indian food and local art on the good side with grand designs and glass everywhere on the other side. Lookout for homespun regional brands with ‘world class amenities’.
Good or bad, this in my view is the true foundation of Indian hospitality, an evolution the West must come to terms with.
Have a good week.
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COMMENT
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