Lesson Learned by Wajeed Bagwan, General Manager, Oakwood Premier Prestige Bangalore
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This Covid-19 pandemic is first of its kind, with this magnitude, in the past few decades which has hit hard on the global hotel’s sector, who are now grappling with significantly low demand and very few future bookings. We have had the earlier economic crisis and milder scale pandemic situations like the Ebola and SARS and the industry has sustained and recovered in a quick and shorter span. However, the hotel industry had never taken this into consideration to have a “hand-book plan” in place for any such future force majeure situations, thus we were taken by a big surprise!
Fortunately, our property i.e. Oakwood Premier Prestige Bangalore was all geared up to have an edge over competition during these difficult times of a complete lockdown phase, with an increased luxurious offering and a focus on our unique selling point as the best luxury apart hotel in India with all modern facilities that include fully equipped kitchenette, washer, dryer, en-suite steam, sauna and other luxury facilities. Emerging as one of the most sustainable business model in the hospitality sector today, we have been operational throughout the post Covid-19 period with a good occupancy due to long stays at our property which were basically the expat heads of multinational companies, embassies & consulates, film personalities and other regular several high profile guests of corporates present in the city for their projects.
Therefore, the learnings were clear in understanding that long stays were much better sustainable business options than short stays in hotels. Serviced Apartments or better referred as Apart-Hotels, generally offer a lot more benefits such as space, value, location, kitchenette facilities, washer/Dryer, service flexibility, privacy and much more as compared to hotels.
The longer than average duration of stay, coupled with lower running costs, means that Apart hotels generally achieve higher net operating incomes compared to traditional hotels.
Moreover, having more long stays in house minimises the operational requirements such as minimal staffing and other recurring costs as well. Since having lower operating costs give a better net yield benefit to Apart-hotels than traditional hotels; it is certainly wise for many to consider that facilities flexibility option within a hotel to attract long stays or longer average stays.
Surprisingly, we have actually received expression of interests from a few known businessmen who wanted to consider our business model of serviced apartments for their properties in the several second & third tier Indian cities.
This has been a great silver lining and motivation for me personally!
The another new normal lesson learnt during this Covid -19 period is that the number one consideration was health and safety which translates into hygiene and sanitation issues of the hotel. The key is to provide physical evidence of the hotel’s concern for health and safety. We believe the best way for us to demonstrate our commitment is to give our guests and associates the assurance of exacting standards of safety and hygiene. As a brand, we continue to ensure the highest standards of hygiene awareness among our employees. We have introduced our very own “Oakwood Clean360” program which emphasizes on enhanced cleaning standards.
