Going beyond safety
Not everyone got bogged down during the adversities caused by COVID-19 and instead of calling it a doomsday, they managed to sail through. Himmat Anand, Founder, Tree of Life Resorts & Hotels, also managed to do so.
Himmat Anand believes that the industry created a lot of negativity as a reaction to COVID-19. “The industry is at fault to have created a negative scenario for themselves by discussing about how industry will close, hotels will be doomed, and travel will be unsafe. This way we doubled our troubles,” he said.
However, they kept a positive approach towards their business. “We accepted that everything was lost and decided to build ourselves back upwards from zero. We were very positive and proactive on social media and took out new programmes. The idea was that we wanted to have a continuity of our presence and of our business. We were the first in the country to announce the opening of our property. In mid-May, we announced that on Friday, June 19, we will open,” he added. Tree of Life Resort & Spa was the first property they opened. “We were conscious of the fact that we will only open properties which are within four to five hours of driving distance from the source market, and hence Jaipur was the best bet, as it was within driving distance of NCR. We started with an occupancy of 28-30 per cent in
Our luxury pool villas sell out first and they sell between
14,000-16,000 per night only with breakfast plus GST”
June, and slashed June prices. To activate the market again, we went for a deep 50 per cent discount in June. In July we brought it to 40 per cent, and in August we had around 25-30 per cent discounting. By October it would come to around 10-15 per cent discounting, as I believe that by October things will be stable for us as a group. This means that out of eight properties, at least in four, things will be stable. Jaipur has done unbelievably well in July. It has taken us by surprise, as we have done better this July than July of last year. Our occupancy in July was about 68 per cent with an ARR of ` 10,700. Interestingly, our luxury pool villas are the ones to sell out first and they sell between ` 14,00016,000 per night only with breakfast plus GST,” shared Anand.
Small weddings is another segment, which did get them some business. “Before COVID happened, we launched a brand called Intimate Moments by Tree of Life in JanFeb. The idea was that people wanted to get away from huge numbers and we felt that people want to do small weddings, celebrations, anniversaries, birthdays, baby showers, and bachelorette parties, but in an intimate and personalised way. However, it didn’t take off the way we expected, but now we have re-introduced Intimate Moments, where we are focusing only on small segment functions at our properties, which usually have 10-18 rooms, which can accommodate 35-50 people. We’ve had around four weddings in the last month, including two in Varanasi. We also have bookings for Varanasi and Jaipur for November and December,” concluded Anand.