‘Hygiene and cleanliness will continue to be of prime focus in the new normal’
As the economy starts to perform, confidence and happiness will enable travel. As the peak declines, there will be a lot more domestic travel picking up, which will continue to happen until the skies open up and international destinations have been cleared, and possibly even after that. Rattan Keswani - Deputy Managing Director, Lemon Tree Hotels and Director, Carnation Hotels expects an uptick in domestic leisure travel, and with nearly 80 hotels across the country, they are planning several packages targeted towards staycations and great Indian getaways.
One of the biggest challenges so far Lemon Tree Hotels has been gaining the trust of guests in terms of cleanliness and hygiene standards post the outbreak, to deal with which they have laid down a set of ‘House Rules’ at all their properties as most of their guests enquire about their sanitization and cleanliness measures, social distancing, food safety and other norms before they finalise their reservation with them.
“For this, we have partnered with Diversey for our new hygiene initiative i.e. Rest Assured. As part of this initiative, the company we have a new set of house rules and preventive measures, to be followed by guests, visitors and team members within each property, to maximise safety and hygiene. The new ‘House Rules’ help customers understand what to expect from our hotels as well as what they must do to ensure their safety e.g. masks, maintaining social distancing, washing/sanitising their hands, etc,” says Keswani.
Sanitisation, hygiene and revenue generation are their focus areas at present across all properties in India and abroad. At all their hotels, they are maintaining best-in-class hygiene standards, and their Rest Assured programme creates an environment focused on the health, hygiene, safety and wellbeing of people.
Moreover, they are looking into the revenue-generating opportunities that will help them bounce back in the new normal. Keswani shares, “One area we have tapped into is day-use accommodation and work areas with business facilities, high-speed wi-fi, etc. for the day for transient and short-stay guests, and for those for whom it may not be convenient to work from home – whether due to personal reasons or infrastructure limitations. These days, WFH could mean work from hotel just as much as work from home.”
Thus, they have assessed the nature of the current demand and have developed offers to suit this new demand including day use rates, Work From Hotel, Lemon Tree vouchers, seclusion packages, road trip routes, etc. their observation is that people are going through fatigue on account of the stress and lack of mobility created by the pandemic, and road trip destinations such as Goa, Manesar, Rishikesh, Jaipur, Corbett, etc. have seen a decent resurgence. Even Udaipur, as a driving destination from Gujarat, has done quite well. Guests are willing to travel to destinations easily reachable by road in the safety of their own vehicles when they know the hotel they are headed to is clean, sanitised and follow processes that keep them safe.
“Apart from this, we are focusing on the new market segments such as quarantine requirements, healthcare facilities on-premises, MSME business travel and small conferences. In the leisure segment, we expect people to take short driving holidays for which we have developed packages for all our hotels at such locations. Lemon Tree Hotels has launched ‘Trippin with Lemon Tree’ where guests can do pre-defined driving routes with family or friends. Our hotels can be booked for transit stays and/or at the final destination,” informs Keswani.
For their restaurants, they have made the ordering and payment process contactless with the QRestro app. This allows guests to scan a QR code and access the entire menu of the coffee shop/ in-room dining and select the items they want to order. Then the team reconfirms the order with the guest on the phone and delivers it hygienically in the defined time. Once the guest has finished his meal he can pay online with the link sent to their phone. Thus, the guests feel more reassured with this process being made contactless.
While it is imperative to be connected to your workforce and stakeholders amidst the crisis, Keswani says, “Our leadership team has engaged with teams at all hotels on a regular basis both online and offline to motivate them and ensure their physical and mental health is taken care of. Training sessions have been conducted continuously to keep all employees up to date with the revised SOPs and guests’ interaction processes. From an HR perspective, there has been no compromise with the health and safety of our employees i.e. masks, gloves, personal protective equipment, temperature checks, etc.”