Home / PEOPLE / Hospitality Trends / Hotelier Exclusive: Raymond Bickson, CEO, IHCL

Raymond Bickson.

Heading up the largest hotel group in one of the fastest growing economies in the world, couldn’t possibly be an easy task.

But American Raymond Bickson, CEO and MD of the Indian Hotels Company, makes it look like a cake-walk. Hotelier India catches up with the man who seems to have become the American Dream not only for the hotel chain, but for India’s hospitality sector here and abroad.

Sat in a glass-enclosed lounge, post a dramatic two-hour launch of the new Vivanta brand, and now with questions flying at him from all angles, you’d imagine Raymond Bickson would be stressed-out, a little nervous and terribly impatient. No such thing! On the contrary, he wore his famous ‘Aloha’ smile, was enigmatic and appeared as cool as a cat.

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Hawaii-born Bickson, who currently has his plate full with branding exercises, new hotel openings and even the visit of US President Barack Obama to India next month, took the bull by the horns when he joined the Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) seven years ago, to restructure the brand.

The Taj Group, which has been around since 1901, making it 109 years old, is IHCL’s luxury brand that has, quite recently, dipped its fingers into other hotel segments.

Today, the group comprises four brands including the Taj, which serves the luxury market and what the group is mostly known for; Vivanta by Taj, aims at what they call the upper-upscale segment; Gateway, which is their three-star addition and lastly, the very basic Ginger brand. Vivanta by Taj has been their most recent launch.

“In order to be able to go into other areas, we had to split up the brand,” says Bickson in an attempt to explain the new branding plan.

“For example, when we thought of setting up a hotel in Guwahati in Assam, we realised a five-star deluxe brand like the Taj couldn’t be present, due to the existing hotel rates in that region. We were simply not affordable; but the Gateway which charges about `2000 per day could exist, along with the other brands that were already present and is still competitive,” he said.

Bickson whose background is strictly luxury seemed a perfect fit for the Taj brand. He attended the famed École Hôtelière Lausanne in Switzerland and worked at renowned hotels including Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris, New York’s The Mark and Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.

With such vast international experience, Bickson brought with him a great understanding of how international brands work. So with international hotel chains like the Four Seasons and the Shangri-Las entering India, Bickson was quick to realise that home-grown operators, like the Taj, need to look overseas to protect their market share and diversify their brand on home territory as well.

“Establishing ourselves in markets outside this region is part of our international strategy to grow as a brand and also to maintain and grow our market share; about 25% of the market in India belongs to the Taj,” says Bickson straightening out his characteristic yellow tie with a smug look on his face. “Some of the new projects are management contracts, some are joint ventures and in some we have our own equity.”

He adds, “Our Ginger brand changed the landscape of hospitality in India; Gateway is the biggest brand right now in the upscale segment. We’re the only company in the world that has 12 real palaces as part of our portfolio, so when we say ‘Taj Resorts & Palaces’, you can rest assured, it is really a palace,” he explains.