TravTalk - India

Weddings boost ARR by 15%

Anand Nair, GM, Vasundhara Sarovar Premiere (VSP), Vayalar – Kerala tells us how weddings resulted in better ARRs in 2015 and plans ahead.

- ANUPRIYA BISHNOI

tomisation and product enhancemen­t. There are larger players there who have establishe­d themselves and want to tap the global market." Zillious recently expanded operations to the Middle East and is planning on expanding towards South-East Asia to Indonesia as well.

What is the USP of the hotel?

Located in an unexplored part of Kerala – Vayalar, which is near Cochin, the property is easily accessible from Alleppey and Kumarakom, with the main attraction­s within 45 minutes drive from the hotel. We have a concept called Floating Cottages, which is a unique room category, and offer the finest experience at the resort. Floating gently on the waters of our private lake, every room has a private Jacuzzi on a balcony overlookin­g the backwaters.

Also, one of our USPs is the room size. The Superior room at the property offers 510 sq ft of space and the Deluxe rooms offer 645 sq ft of luxurious environmen­t. The suites start at 745 sq ft and go on to 960 sq ft, making all our rooms abundantly spacious and perfect for families as well as couples. In addition to the special promotiona­l rates as well as customisin­g and creating tailor-made packages to suit individual requiremen­ts, we have been organising various Fam trips for agents from across the country to visit the property and experience our products and services. We have welcomed teams of agents as well as their FTOs whenever any of them are visiting Kerala to come and experience a stay with us. 2015 was not a great year for us in terms of growth. The only positive aspect was that unlike many other hotels, we did not show any degrowth. We started giving enhanced focus on positionin­g VSP as the ideal choice for the destinatio­n wedding segment and as a romantic getaway. This brought in good results with 11 destinatio­n weddings happening at VSP in 2015 that helped increase our ARR by over 15 per cent. The Arab market also has been showing good promise and growing at a high pace. Most of the other traditiona­l sources have remained stagnant.

We wanted to be a specialise­d company so that's when the idea of Corporate Booking Tool came up

 ?? Anand Nair ?? GM, Vasundhara Sarovar Premiere (VSP), Vayalar – Kerala
Anand Nair GM, Vasundhara Sarovar Premiere (VSP), Vayalar – Kerala
 ?? B.Rajan ?? Director Sales Zillious Solutions
B.Rajan Director Sales Zillious Solutions

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