Speaking at the ninth BW HOTELIER Breaking The Pandemic WeBBlast: ‘Going Touchless’ Taljinder Singh, Senior Vice President SeleQtions & Mumbai Hotels, IHCL says that while going ahead technology is going to be important yet it will be “touchless but not without heart”.

The adaptation of the new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will be with the help of technology. Taljinder Singh, Senior Vice President SeleQtions & Mumbai Hotels, IHCL feels that the incorporation of technology in terms of pre-arrival formalities helps ensure that the formalities are complete without any hassle. Upon arrival, again use of technology will ensure guests don’t have to actually come into contact with the staff to receive them at the hotel and then onward of course to the room where use of technology will again play a large part in the new SOPs. 

He feels that the arrival process of a guest and again during the stay, maybe touchless but at the end of the day India Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is known to be a brand that has a lot of warmth, so it will be touchless be but not without heart.

He went on the say, “Technology, but not without tradition. Those are the things that we continue to focus on and even in terms of whether it is the servicing of the rooms or the service in restaurants, use of technology continue to play an important part. There will be QR coded menus while making sure that only one individual at a time serves the requirements of the guests so that contact is minimal but not absent. At the end of the day, it is important that warmth does need to come through in everything that we do.”

Answering a question on General Manager (GM) empowerment, he commented on the situation saying, “I don’t think that it has been any different in the past. From the past to the new normal, GMs in the future only need to be very conscious of the reality, that the risks in decision making that they take cannot result in a violation of safety and violation of health concerns towards our key reason for existence which is customers.”

He feels that it is going to be exceedingly difficult for individual restaurateurs to be able to lure back guests in the current scenario in a pre-vaccine era time.

“We have seen that a lot of restaurants in London and a couple of my favourite restaurants also have shut down because primarily a lot of these businesses operated on a triage of property, investment, brand valuation, roll outs and so on. It is difficult for them to survive when their underlying costs are huge and the premise of making a business successful is brands and valuation in the current era.”

“On the other hand, restaurants which are based on reputation plus delivery, heritage, lineage and assurance of quality, in house quality will find it far easier to survive this current period and continue to survive. So exceedingly difficult in the short term in a nutshell to say that individual restaurants will lure guests away. I think this is a perfect opportunity where the hotel industry as a whole can collectively come back and get the guests back into our restaurants which have always served quality cuisine in a quality environment,” he added.

On a conclusive note he said that empowerment cannot and should not in their industry keep reality out of focus at any point of time, in the name of risk-taking abilities.