The events of this pandemic have raised alarm bells not only in or guests and us, but those of our merchants, and their merchants, and their merchants. Everyone should implement the next level of scrutiny to ensure best food quality.

Our industry has never witnessed a large-scale crisis of this magnitude and therefore the rebound would also not happen overnight. The trend will now shift again – from sustainability to food safety. Social distancing will have a prominent place in our current landscape for a foreseeable future. The better we will be in a position to anticipate the guests’ concerns, address their needs, and fulfill their demands, the quicker will be that we as an industry will return to normalcy and profitability.

The guests will be more demanding - in regards to safety, cleanliness, and overall quality. For many years, some of the more progressive restaurant brands have preached the importance of supply chain visibility and the ability to track product from farm to the back-door to the plate. We have however been pioneers in this space – showcasing to our guests, the source of our ingredients and that makes our guests very comfortable. 

The events of this pandemic have raised alarm bells not only in or guests and us, but those of our merchants, and their merchants, and their merchants. Everyone should implement the next level of scrutiny to ensure best food quality. 

The new normal

While all hotels are geared up to deliver the best in terms of protection, cleanliness and hygiene, it is going to be very important to communicate this to the guests while maintaining a personal connect and with our caring nature that we are loved for. Social distancing is counter-intuitive to the typical high-touch hospitality that our guests are used to. Reiterating to our guests that we are there for them with the same level of service and dedication while ensuring the safety of everyone in the hotel is going to be the most critical task.

To encourage the guests to maintain social distancing, we would implement professionally tailor-made SOP's for our hotel. Communication will be displayed in key touch points of the hotel including front of the house for guests and heart of the house for our team. For the team, we have also developed a training plan to keep everyone up to the mark.  

In terms of protocols, there are things like hourly deep cleaning and disinfection, reconfiguration of restaurants, lobby, and lounge seating to maintain appropriate spacing between seated guests, contactless and keyless check-in via the use of mobile apps, use of gloves, face masks / protective shields by the team, display of hygiene guidelines, etc. 

The revenue and profits will surely not be the same for the next few months and therefore to sustain the business, some cost control measures have been outlined while taking complete care of our team and also without compromising the guests’ comfort. Training the team members to be multi-skilled for better efficiency, maximizing the use of technology in order to go paperless, going local in terms of our purchase while maintaining equal standards as before, enhancing sustainability measures, renegotiation with existing vendors are a few critical steps that we are planning for cost reduction.

In place of luxury, hygiene and sanitation will take a driving seat and guests will prefer a ‘Safe Hotel’ instead of a ‘Luxury Hotel. With the hotels moving from aesthetically clean to clinically clean, each team member will have to wear the Housekeeping cap. Thermal check-ups, use of sanitizers and PPE kits by hotel staff will be the new normal. There will also be a change in many hotels policies with more flexibilities being offered both in terms of booking and cancellations.

The hotels will have to deal with a lot of emotions and anxieties of the guests, post this pandemic. To make the guests comfortable and also for their safety, new SOPs have been made, in which sanitization would be the top most priority at every single stage of the stay.

Stay calm and be flexible

As an organization, we have utilized this lockdown time in ‘Reimagining’ and ‘Reinventing’ so we could ‘Reset before we Restart’. We have spent time to finalise several measures that need to be adapted, procedures to be followed, and strategies to be implemented in order to be able to keep everyone safe, drive the business efficiently and help us come back stronger.

In terms of operations, there are three critical areas that we will be focusing on: 

* Reducing ‘Human Touch’ without compromising on ‘Personal Touch’ - The way how rooms use to operate starting from check-in and check-out process to room access is going to change in a way that it involves minimum human touch. This is the right time to increase the use of technology and make a move to automation.

* The operations in restaurants will be very different with the new rules of dining and socializing being set into place. The food delivery, small intimate ODCs are here to stay and we are all geared up and prepared with highest standards of hygiene and safety. 

* The Purchase and supply chain to the hotel will be different with focus on good local products at suitable prices.

While we are ready with all that needs to run a business efficiently but considering the uncertainty of business, this is the time to stay calm, be flexible and ready to reinvent.

As a welfare-oriented and learning organization, it is always our priority to keep our team’s well informed and engaged, to keep their moral high. We took multiple steps and started everyday learning and development programmes on video conferencing. We are offering training programmes on technical ad soft skills, behavioural and leadership development.  Apart from trainings, we have established an open communication process. We have also started Story Telling sessions which are so engaging that most of our team members showed interest, shared stories, discussed about their challenges, learnings and they pepped it up with their poetry skills which was a pleasant surprise for us.  

Apeejay Institute of Hospitality, another wing of the group is also conducting many training programmes and engagement activities on social media to keep our teams engaged and happy.

Post-COVID aftermath

The recent survey by EEMA (Events and Entertainment Management Association) that was shared with Govt. of India and Ernst & Young suggests that the Indian events and exhibition sector is expected to take an INR 1 Tn hit as almost all big scale events across categories have been postponed or cancelled because of the outbreak.

The impact of the cancellation of business events is significantly intense and we do not predict a revival before the end of July, at the least. It is reasonable to suggest that in the interim, the off-premise services like home delivery, outdoor catering, or food pickup are likely to rebound faster in the Post Covid-19 aftermath or small intimate events once they are approved may support the business. 

Post lockdown we expect the travel from nearby areas will start first, followed by Intra-state travel. It looks the international tourism will have some traction post November 2020 and there should be a surge starting January 2021. Hence Domestic business will be the major revenue source for this year. Hotels will have to adjust to the domestic market demands, guest preferences and the hotels that are able to successfully implement and convince the guests about their brand promise on Hygiene & Safety will secure the biggest pie from the Domestic Travel.

In fact, for THE Park New Delhi, domestic business has been the focus for a long time. We do have the benefit as we are an indigenous Hotel chain and our roots remain in the country. The old way of doing business will change and hence our strategies to tackle and get the market share is also changing in order to be able to derive revenues in the existing market situation.

Coming out stronger

Covid-19 has left the entire world at a standstill, where we saw a lot or people struggling to avail basic amenities and doctors struggling to even go back to their homes. We have been fortunate to have our health workers stay with us, who are the frontline heroes in this entire war against Corona. 

My message to all our stakeholders is that we are together in this health & economic crisis and we must all stand together in this battle to come out stronger, leaving no one behind. We will not stop living, we will just start the new living that will be safe for everyone. 

The key lesson is that we need to be ready for even the biggest waves in our lives and in the business. To overcome the dent that may be caused by these waves, planning and reimaging oneself with the new scenarios is of utmost importance. Times will change, the business models will change and whoever can adapt to the new model most instantly will survive the game and emerge as a winner.

Let us learn from this time – learn to reinvent, reimagine and evolve.