Abinash Manghani
Chief Executive Officer, WelcomHeritage Hotels
The year 2022:
Achieving double-digit growth this year, we can safely say that the Hospitality industry has meaningfully rebounded and surpassed pre-pandemic numbers. With our mindfully curated collection of boutique hotels, WelcomHeritage is firmly committed to showcasing the myriad of authentic cultural and nature-based experiences, indigenous and local to the region we are in, with the best Indian hospitality on offer.
We used the pandemic years to accelerate ideas, projects, and initiatives, fast-tracking our goals towards providing in-class guest convenience and services as well as strengthening our trade collaborations. Some examples are technology integration for ease of guests and trade bookings, embedding new systems to generate guests’ feedback, and integrating them with operations for smooth action. We’re making significant strides toward energy efficiency; we will soon announce a firstof-its-kind initiative. We’ve adopted responsible tourism as one of our primary objectives for the coming years. With large-scale and corporate events still under much caution, the Leisure segment was our mainstay in 2022. Inspiring trends seen and to look forward to: It is clear now that the lockdown fatigue seems to have turned into a new love for travelling within the country. People are discovering new interests in exploring culture, heritage, and nature and enriching possibilities of travel experiences. The growth of nature and wildlife segments was the key growth driver for the last two years, along with
the growth of domestic travel, which is a welcome sign. Similarly, drivable holidays, workcations, staycations, exploring the unexplored, and short-haul travel were the trends that saw the limelight in the last year. Adventure and ‘healing holidays’ are also taking centre stage. MICE and destination weddings are making a comeback. Strong domestic demand and economic growth, competitive price offerings, infrastructure development, and the emergence of new destinations and niche tourism products will continue to drive the industry’s growth in the coming year.
Preparedness and expectations for 2023: With the beginning of Inbound tourism, Heritage Tourism is bound to get a fillip. The Indian Tourism and Hospitality industry will mature and metamorphose in a balanced manner. Tourism needs both International and Domestic tourism as against a skew towards Inbound in key markets earlier.
Currently, the outlook is that Inbound Tourism will begin with a moderate flow by January 2023 onwards. Inbound influx is also subject to airline capacity and visas, which are now being restored! Domestic tourism remains the key to growth in the medium term. Keeping in mind the strong domestic market, we’re looking at scaling our portfolio of hotels to weave in experiential and unique destinations. Towards this, we plan to continue the brand’s expansion within the country with four planned openings in 2023, including WelcomHeritage Azora by Ayatana, Fort Kochi, WelcomHeritage Ayatana, Ooty, WelcomHeritage Santa Roza, Kasauli, and WelcomHeritage Akashganga Heritage Hills Resort and Spa, Dungarpur. With these additions, the WelcomHeritage collection will comprise 46 boutique hotels with 1300+ keys across 40 impressive Indian destinations. While the focus on domestic travellers remains undeterred, our prime revenue generator preCOVID, the inbound market, already shows a promising comeback in 2023!