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This cover story breaks with the norm and conducts a survey – what do your vendors really think about your hotel? Punam Mohandas and Sapna Kulshrestha run the gauntlet with some suppliers.

Talk about throwing the Christians into a den of lions. That’s roughly the kind of reaction we got when we approached suppliers with this month’s cover story theme. However, once they warmed up to the fact that we were not about to stir up a hornet’s nest, rather, this would actually smoothen relations between them and hoteliers, they gamely got down to answering the questions.

One of the first questions that came to mind is that almost everyone has slashed budgets due to the economic downturn.

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Has this been at the cost of quality? On the contrary, eRevMax India, providers of online benchmarking and channel management for the hospitality industry, say that they have not only achieved targets during this period, but seen a positive growth. Says Uday Singh Solanki CTO and MD, India eRevMax: “The highest demand for our product has come from Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru due to the technology requirement in these cities.”

Shehzad Khan, proprietor, The Gold Leafing Studio, is of the opinion that in fact, the downturn has been a boost for better interiors among hotels, in order to get an edge over the competition. However, he does say that: “Although hotels are open to exploring newer products even at higher costs, due to budget constraints they sometimes do compromise on quality.”

Anil Malhotra, proprietor, Hospitality Sales & Marketing Company that specialises in hotel products such as connectivity hubs, room management systems, electronic locks and safes, sleep solutions, outdoor furniture and F&B products, agrees.

“All business verticals were impacted and hotels were no exception, however, the market seems bullish now for them. Hotels sometimes do compromise on quality due to budget constraints,” he says.

Neeraj Seth, managing director, Celsius Refrigeration Pvt. Ltd, begs to differ. “I don’t think the leading hotels have compromised on quality at all. The long-term players never do, although in their own way, every hotel tried to deal with this through a variety of cost cutting measures,” he says.

Umesh Tandon, sales manager, Everstyle Hotel Supplies Pvt Ltd, suppliers of imported tableware to luxury and mid segment hotels such as the Taj and Oberoi Groups, Hyatt Hotels, ITC WelcomGroup, Park Hotels, Westin and Accor, feels that large hotel chains like Taj and Oberoi are more aware of international standards and thus easier to work with, while independent hotels are harder to convince on the products due to their limited exposure.

Adds Tandon: “High-end properties do sometimes compromise on quality due to budget constraints; one of the reasons why the downturn in hospitality industry impacted us deeply but now, with the rise in economy, business is getting better.”

As is well known, India is seeing a boom in hospitality construction. There will be at least 40-international brands in the country by 2011. Since the vendors we spoke to are well versed with industry norms, we asked them where they think the future of Indian hospitality lies.