Vijay Dewan is Managing Director at Park Hotels India, which is pioneering the boutique designer hotel concept in India. It now has hotels in a number of gateway cities of India, including Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Navi Mumbai and Visakhapatnam (in Andhra Pradesh).
How are things at the moment?
Last year was difficult for many hotel brands in India, though perhaps not as difficult as it was elsewhere in the world. The supply was planned when the world economy was on the up, and all the supply comes in just at the wrong time which has impacted the hotel groups’ revenue. We have been affected less. We have strong domestic demand, and we get a lot of domestic food and beverage revenue. It could be 55% or 60% of the revenue in some hotels, including the meetings business. Nightclubs are big business for us.
That’s unusual. What else is unusual about the brand?
We are a contemporary brand, boutique, style-driven, modern, and so far as India is concerned, we don’t have competition in that area. We might get copied by other brands, but they will always be second best. It’s very difficult to create that culture within an organisation, the kind of service culture which we have. Being casual and friendly but still being five star. Taj is trying with its new brand Vivanta but it isn’t easy.
The hotels have been designed by the world’s leading designers, and in hotels such as our one in Hyderabad we have 12 designers involved in the hotel, and so that’s very unique. It’s difficult for others to match this which is a combination of product and service. Every hotel in the group is different.
Isn’t that an expensive business model?
It is, much more expensive than a standard hotel with a cookie cutter approach which runs across all properties running across with brand standards. But there are consistencies in service.
But the more hotels you open, the greater must be the pressure to repeat yourself.
We avoid that by seeing if we can bring in a local interface into the design. The hotel in Hyderabad, for instance, uses a lot of local artisans and designers. It is influenced by Hyderabad’s tradition as a centre of design, so the facade references jewellery settings and metal work found in the Nizam’s jewellery collection. The interiors are by both Indian [Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Manish Arora, Jean Francois Lesage, Bharti Kher, Subodh Gupta and Rajiv Saini] and international [Skidmore Owings Merrill (New York), Conran & Partners (UK), Chadha Siembeda (Australia) and Blacksheep (UK)] designers. The hotel in Delhi is based on the five elements and the one in Bangalore is based on the landscapes of India.
Where do your guests come from?
There is a lot of domestic corporate travel because we run business hotels mostly, and also international corporate travel. The breakdown differs between hotels but across the hotels it is 60 domestic and 40 per cent is international, but in Delhi 70% is international, so it depends on the property.
What is your attraction for international travellers?
International travellers come to us not only to experience a good hotel but they also want an Indian experience both in the product and the service. Indian travellers like the fact that it is modern.
Are your corporate travellers a different profile from those staying in traditional hotels?
Our travellers are young in mind rather than age, they are business travellers who like to do business but also have fun. We own the best bars and nightclubs in the country.
Do you have a recognition programme?
Preferred at the Park. It’s based on points which can be redeemed at the hotels. We have about 5000 members, both international and domestic. It is by invitation. You have to have had a certain amount of visits and they you are invited to join.
Do you have expansion plans?
We have 10 properties at the moment that we are running. There are three in the pipeline, one in Calcutta, a second property there, Pune and Jaipur, plus we are taking two more properties in management contracts, one in Goa, a resort which should be running by March, and one in Cochin. So that will be 15 before too long, we will own 12 and have three in management contracts.
We are looking at more management contacts but the properties have to fit into our style of hotels otherwise we don’t take them on. They have to be contemporary, they have to be unique. They can be renovations, not necessarily new. You could do an old palace or fort as well as a managed property. We are looking more into owning properties as well and aim to have 20 of our own by 2020. The hotel company is a separate company with its own balance sheet and has to raise money itself. The parent company of course is there to support.
Will you launch other brands or sub brands of Park Hotels?
I don’t think we want to confuse our strategy at the moment. Most of our properties are classified by the government as five star deluxe. Some of the properties are five star, but mostly they are five star deluxe. As I said, they are all very different. They range in number of rooms from about 20 to 270, though most of them are over 100 rooms. We have around 1100 rooms in total.
We have positioned ourselves as a collection of hotels located in the metro cities of India. The other cities, the tier two and tier three cities is not our strategy. We might have one, two or three hotels in those metro cities, and also doing some very unique resorts.
How does it work having two properties in the same city?
It’s fine. Market size is expanding, each metro city is growing. Other brands are the same, Taj and Oberoi have two or three hotels in these cities. There is always a requirement.
Do you have a spa product?
We have a brand of our own called Aura which we have in all of our hotels. Each treatment room is designed differently, even the music and the atmosphere is different.
How do you market yourself?
Marketing internationally is through Design Hotels, and of course through our own web site, PR, and the GDS. But we get 25% of our business through the internet, including online travel agents. Our position internationally has improved considerably with our communications across the world. We have PR and communication company in the US, and we have one in the UK. We position the hotels as 'The Park – where you stay inspired'.
For an interview with Priya Paul, Chair of Park Hotels India, click here.