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What has been the effect of COVID-19 on business?
The hospitality industry has been impacted significantly by COVID-19 across the world and India is no exception. The nation-wide lockdown and ban on flights since 24th March has impacted domestic and international travel. The full impact of the pandemic on our business remains to be quantified and trying to put a figure on the business impact before all the data is available would not be accurate.
We are still operating about 60% of our portfolio, albeit at a low level of occupancy in some hotels. The period from 1st to 11th March was almost as good as last year; we registered 65 to 70% occupancy rates at most of the properties. With the shutdown and reduction in travel, our occupancy level has drastically reduced since then.
The pandemic has significantly impacted our business in the short term, but I remain cautiously optimistic about the long-term outlook, as people will start traveling sooner or later.
Do you think domestic market will be able to shore you up once the crisis blows over?
In India, we have a very strong domestic tourism market and a consumer base that enjoys travelling. Tourism contributes to approximately 9% of our GDP and we are optimistic that domestic business will be a key factor in the industry’s recovery. The domestic contribution is extremely important for us; it’s more than 85% of our business. We will continue to focus our efforts in the home market which remains significant.
I feel both domestic and international business travel will come back faster than leisure in the short term, and when things stabilize, leisure will also come back. In fact, we do expect to see some amount of pent up and bucket-list travel in the domestic and international leisure segments.
What measures have you taken to cut cost of operations?
We have implemented several cost optimization measures without compromising on the quality of service and offerings. In cities where we have more than one hotel, we have tried to move business to one hotel to minimise the cost of operations. Other cost-saving initiatives include energy savings, hiring freeze, redeployment of employees, partial closure of hotel floors, partial/full closure of restaurants, minimising room service menus and observing financial prudence which are all helping bring down costs.Â
How are you geared up to handle a situation where one of your guest ends up testing positive for Covid-19?
The guidelines set by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, have been implemented across all our hotels. Should there be a positive case, we are well-equipped to handle the situation with the utmost care and safety standards. This includes setting aside designated isolation rooms/areas, as well as ensuring that the patient is immediately and safely transported to the designated medical facility. Anyone who has interacted with the guest, including employees, is asked to self-quarantine for 14 days mandatorily.
How are the hygiene levels been taken care?
IHCL has been following the highest levels of hygiene and cleanliness standards across all its hotels. It has always been our number one priority to provide safe and clean environment With COVID 19, we were very quick to intensify precautionary measures so that every guest, vendor and associate is protected from the virus, as per the guidelines and requirements from government agencies. This included training our associates to the protocol prescribed by the Government of India, sanitization of all areas, and increased access to alcohol-based hand sanitizers at prominent locations and body temperature checks for everyone visiting our premises using non-invasive laser thermometers.
What innovative solutions/process/guidelines did you come up during this time which you plan to continue even after the crisis is over?
In today’s volatile world, any company management has to factor in multiple disruptions. For the hotel industry these normally were wars, recession or political developments. A new factor has been added to this list—global health issues. We will now always need to factor this in while making business plans.
A key learning from the ongoing crisis and a change I would like to bring about in our ways of working is to institutionalise a permanent cognitive task force whose responsibility shall be to constantly monitor and assess risks and opportunities, factoring in global volatility and potential challenges to business through various scenarios including health/ natural or other disasters.
What is the hospitality industry expecting from the government?
The government has been very inclusive in taking into consideration the opinions of business leaders before announcing key policy updates around the pandemic. We will need further collaboration after the pandemic dies down for us to restore normalcy to the industry.Â
In India, we have also, under the aegis of The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH) and the Hotel Association of India (HAI), recently written to various government bodies to highlight the numerous difficulties being faced by the tourism industry because of COVID-19. We are optimistic for a favourable outcome to help us tide over these challenging times.
Globally bodies such as WTTC have been also working with government to help improve travel facilitation by:
- Removing, simplifying or reducing cost during the visa process wherever possible.
- Ensuring that unnecessary barriers are removed or relaxed to alleviate pressure at ports and airports and implementing flexible working visa for the industry.
- Reducing and removing travellers’ taxes, which increase the cost of travel.
- Introducing relief and incentives to support business continuity for companies that have been most negatively impacted by the virus.
- Supporting destinations by increasing budgets and assigning resources for promotion, marketing and product development purposes
What have your hotels have done to support this situation—whether it is supporting the community you work in or the employees?
We at IHCL are keenly aware of our responsibility towards our immediate community and the people within it. We understand there is an urgent requirement of safe and sterile food and spaces in the city. To this effect, we are working with the government to provide assistance, wherever needed.
Two of our hotels are now dedicated quarantine facilities—Ginger Bhubaneshwar and Ginger Mumbai, where guests can check-in for the mandatory self-quarantine period of 14 days. We are also working with local authorities in different cities to provide meals to hospitals. In Mumbai, we have partnered with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to offer approximately 7,000 TajSATS meals a day to healthcare workers at the Kasturba Hospital, The King Edward Memorial Hospital and the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital. In Bangalore, Taj West End has started providing meals to Victoria Hospital, identified as the official COVID-19 treatment Centre by the Government of Karnataka. Further, we provide daily 20,000 meals for the Migrant workers through BMC and have already offered rooms for doctors and medical staff across all our hotels in Mumbai again in collaboration with BMC.
Every crisis has its cons but also its pros… or learnings for the industry. For a situation like this, what would the cons be, and what are pros.
On a macro level, the industry has never witnessed anything like this in the last 75 years. It has faced many crises such as SARS, Gulf War, 9/11, 26/11, and even the consequences of the Lehmann collapse of 2008, but the scale and immediacy of the COVID-19 health crisis is unprecedented. This would be a con as this is such a unique situation with no past data or references.
A positive would be the way the entire industry has come together embracing a collective, mutually beneficial and coordinated approach.
What sort of changes do you see yourself making in the way you live life in the wake of this crisis? Has it made you reflect on things such as work-life balance?     Â
Given my hectic travel and work schedules I feel I missed out on some basic simple pleasures in life like cooking occasionally, eating home food, being there for my family and staying more connected with my friends and loved ones. I hope I can introduce this kind of balance in my life going forward as well.
Personally, what have been your learnings from this crisis? Have you ever dealt with such a huge crisis before?
I have always believed that tough times don’t last, tough people do. We have a history of over 117 years and during this time our team has braved through numerous crisis. Having said that, we have bounced back from each of those, and I am certain that IHCL, along with the industry, will bounce back from this one too.
