Exclusive Interview | Hemant Gupta, General Manager, Holiday Inn Express Kolkata Airport - PreOpening

Editor: Tell us about your journey. How did it all start?

January 2003, was the year when my journey as a Hotelier began with The Trident in Jaipur as a F&B Associate. It has been 17 years now and have been fortunate to work with some great Indian & International Brands in the Country. A Hotel Management Graduate, from Oriental School in Kerala, my journey took me to 7 different states of India: Rajasthan, Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi NCR, Tamil Nadu & West Bengal; and considerable years of my experience has been with Hyatt.

My Managerial role started in 2007 with Le Meridien in Jaipur, as a Restaurant Manager, to lead the Coffee Shop, Bar & The Indian Specialty. To further deepen my knowledge in F&B, I took the role of Banquet Manager with The Leela Kempinski in Kovalam, in 2008.

In 2010, my First Pre-Opening assignment knocked my door, for Hyatt Regency in Pune, as Events & Conference Assistant Manager. 2 years later, in 2012, came my second Pre-Opening assignment with Hyatt, to launch Hyatt Place Brand in India, in the City of Ruins, Hampi.

Pre-Opening assignments was something which I started enjoying and came in 2014 was my Third assignment, for opening of second Hyatt Place in Udyog Vihar, Gurugram Delhi NCR, as an Assistant General Manager. To broaden my knowledge in Hotels, I switched roles and headed the Rooms, Human Resource and Engineering functions of the Hotel.

My love for Pre-Opening Hotels is never ending, and hence now I am in my Fourth Pre-Opening Assignment, and my First stint with Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), to open a Beautiful and Smart Holiday Inn Express Hotel, opposite the Kolkata International Airport, which will make the Future Travelers #morethanready and focuses on Simple Smart Travel.

Editor: What do you think it takes to succeed in this industry?

Everyone has their own definition to success. If one has to be successful, then one has to keep adding value; to yourself, your guests and your stakeholders.

Editor: What are the attributes you look for while selecting or hiring?  If someone wants to work with you, what should they do?

I look for morals and values; the person is made of. I look for the value addition that a person can do in my team, create balance and foster teamwork. One has to be real and be true to themselves, to work with me.

Editor: What according to you can trainees do while they are training at hotels to make it a win-win for them & the hotel/unit?

Hotel Exposure Trainings are extremely important, and I can only recommend that all Hotel Management students should spend equal amount of time in all the departments. It’s too early to make up a mind even before the start of internship, that which department they want to spend maximum time in. It eventually burns them out. This is the only time you get to work in all areas, so why not make best use of it.

Editor: What are some of the trends you see impacting the hospitality industry?

Environmental Sustainability and the fight to reduce Carbon Footprints, is on the rise like never before. This is going to be big game changer in Hospitality, as the impact can be immediately seen on your bottom line.

While all the Hotels are moving into this direction, this can be evidently visible in the newly built upcoming hotels, which are now focused on using natural resources by creating efficient designs to reduce. Holiday Inn Express Kolkata Airport is one of the newly designed hotels of IHG, which makes great usage of natural lights by having large windows at lobby and even back of the house areas. IHG has taken Environmental sustainability to higher levels by making Carbon Reduction as one of our Core KPI’s.

Editor: Tech is now an enabler for great hospitality. Can you share with us some of the tech that goes into creating your guest experience? 

We have always looked at Technology for providing great guest experiences. At IHG we have been looking at creating value for our Stakeholders and Owners as well. We use cloud based technology platform, IHG Concerto, which is seamless combination of our Guest Reservations System and Price Optimization Software. This continue to strengthen our enterprise and enhance revenue delivery system.

To further strengthen our guest experience, our WiFi Guest network, IHG Connect, is providing seamless connectivity. In future, a guest would have the ability to stream content on in-room smart TV’s.

Editor: Two things you would like to change in the industry.

1. I would look at ways on how we can remove Sugar sachets from Café’s & Restaurants. A sugar sachet has a huge impact in environment which we don’t see, as it easily misses the eye. Every sugar sachet, in addition to paper, also has a plastic layer inside to prevent it from moisture. This needs to go out, just like the plastic straws. If we can have Salt & Pepper in crusher, why not Sugar.

2. Remove the concept of Sunday Brunches from Cafés &Restaurants. While it is an important part of F&B Business, however if someone has to do a research on this subject, the kind of food waste that we generate in just on one Sunday is huge. We are wasting resources way too fast.

Holiday Inn Express Kolkata Airport - PreOpening

Editor: What can we expect from your hotel in the coming year?

In my current assignment, my Hotel, Holiday Inn Express Kolkata is in its Pre-Opening stages. It’s a smartly designed 125 Keys property, nestled in the centre of a 4 acres of beautiful landscape and just 800 metres of walking distance from the Boarding Gate of Kolkata International Airport.

The plan is to establish this property as an Airport Hotel, which will be used by Transit travellers moving in and out of Kolkata, and also as a great Business Hotel to the likings of all our Corporate Guests, with us being only 15 minutes from the IT Hub of Rajarhat and 20 minutes from Sector V.

The Hotel also features our All Day Dining Café, Great Room, serving light bites and beverages. In coming months, we foresee Great Room, operating like an Airport Lounge. It will be a quick stopover for all our Transit guests to take a quick bite or have candid farewell meetings before a final goodbye, as Wi-Fi is always Free and Boarding gates are just a 5 minutes’ drive or 10 minutes’ walk, whatever a Guests chooses to prefer.

Exclusive Interview | ‘General Manager of the Year’ : Vishal Singh; General Manager, HYATT REGENCY GURGAON

“ I feel very honoured to receive the ‘General Manager of the Year’ award in the Luxury and Upper upscale segment at Hotel Operations Summit of India (HOSI). This was for my tenure at Hyatt Regency Pune, and it would not have been possible without the support of a great team that I worked with.”

— Vishal Singh

Tell us about your journey. How did it all start?

My journey as an hotelier started 23 years back. Since then, I have had the privilege of working with several premium hotels in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Goa & Pune. An MBA in Marketing and graduate of IHM, Pusa, New Delhi, maximum of my tenure has been working with Hyatt, albeit in two tenures.

My Hyatt journey started in 2002 as Conferencing & Banqueting Manager at Hyatt Regency Delhi, further climbing up as Assistant Director of Food & Beverage. In 2006, Mumbai came calling next with a transfer to Grand Hyatt Mumbai and I got the opportunity to work at one of the largest hotels in the country. Launched the iconic ‘China House restaurant & lounge’ at the hotel.

Subsequently I was promoted as Director Food & Beverage at the luxurious Park Hyatt Goa Resort & Spa. To gain experience in launching new properties, I joined Hilton and was part of the pre-opening team of Hilton Chennai as Director of Operations in 2009, then moved to Double Tree by Hilton, Gurgaon in 2011.

Tryst with the Hyatt recurred in 2013 when I joined as the first General Manager of Hyatt Pune, formerly known as Ista hotels. My career high point during then was being awarded the prestigious Hyatt Award – ‘Donald N. Pritzker Award for Hotel Team of the Year’. The award recognizes Hyatt’s top-performing hotel teams in the areas of colleague, guest and owner preference. Only one hotel in the entire region is selected based on metrics of discretionary activities, initiatives, leadership, innovation success, owner relationship/feedback, talent management and team attributes that reflect outstanding performance over the past year.

The Pune leg continued as I then moved to Hyatt Regency Pune as General Manager in 2016. Team work and astute business thinking resulted in winning the Food & Beverage financial performance challenge 2018 in the Hyatt South West Asia.

I also had the honour of being felicitated among ‘Pune’s Most Powerful’ people consecutively for two years in a row 2017 & 2018 by Times of India group.

The most recent award of the ‘General Manager of the Year’ 2018 in the Luxury and Upper upscale segment at Hotel Operations Summit of India (HOSI) was also for my stint at Hyatt Regency Pune.

2019 started with coming back to my hometown as General Manager for Hyatt Regency Gurgaon, one of the largest convention hotels of North India.

What do you think it takes to succeed in this industry?

There is no shortcut to success – Perseverance and hard work are the keys definitely!

What are the attributes you look for while selecting or hiring? If someone wants to work with you, what should they do?

I look only for 3 things – Attitude , Attitude and Attitude.

What according to you can trainees do while they are training at hotels to make it a win-win for them & the hotel/unit?

Trainees are the future of our industry, they should utilise their training time to its fullest and not be afraid of getting their hands dirty to be able to build a strong foundation. Without a strong foundation, it’s not possible to build a strong building!

What are some of the trends you see impacting the hospitality industry?

The Digital space is evolving rapidly, it’s impacting everything in the industry right from buying decisions to how we conduct our daily business, and this will constantly evolve with millennials constituting majority of the guest base.

Another trend is the ‘Experiential Hospitality’ where guests are expecting hotels to be fulfilling more than just their boarding and lodging needs, people are looking for ‘Unique Experiences’ rather than cookie cutter brand standards. Hence there is more emphasis on ‘Going Global but Thinking Local’, embracing local culture and experiences.

Tech is now an enabler for great hospitality. Can you share with us some of the tech that goes into creating your guest experience?

Technology is making sweeping changes in hospitality space like never before! I believe, the human interface can never be replaced with tech, however it enables hotel team to enhance guest experience. For Eg. At Hyatt, we initiated online room check- in’s prior to arrival and soon moving on to mobile keyless entry where your mobile phone will be your room key.

Two things you would like to change in the industry.

1. To upscale the entry level compensation across the industry immediately in order to opt hospitality as a profession of choice for the younger generation.

2. Have an industry wide repository database of blacklisted / delinquent customers, something like what airlines have ‘no fly list’ or like Uber/ Ola , where customers are rated by the drivers.

What can we expect from your hotel(s) in the coming year?

My current assignment is to lead - Hyatt Regency Gurgaon, 451 keys property with over 40,000 sq. ft. of convention space, with pillar less hall of 21,000 sq. ft., is one the largest of its kind in North India. The plan is to establish the property as the preferred MICE destination in hosting national and international ‘experiential’ meetings and events.

To be the wedding destination of choice in Delhi NCR offering customised experiences with a world class accommodation and tantalising culinary delights. Taking food and beverage to the next level and putting it to the forefront by offerings and organising food promotions / festivals to tap on the local target audience: We have already initiated steps such as a revamping of Sunday brunch with daycation / staycation options, opening of a 24 hours bar and a rejuvenated Spa all this leading to establishing Hyatt Regency Gurgaon a preferred leisure and quick getaway weekend destination, it also is a convenient stop over for tourists covering the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur.

Congratulations on receiving the award. Please do share a little about the award and some best practices that led you to it.

Thank you. I feel very honoured to receive the ‘General Manager of the Year’ award in the Luxury and Upper upscale segment at Hotel Operations Summit of India (HOSI). This was for my tenure at Hyatt Regency Pune, and it would not have been possible without the support of a great team that I worked with. As a team we worked on turning around the property focusing on both top line and bottom line growth, first step was to reposition the property thereby driving the ADR, growing the same by double than what the compset grew by.

Second was to effectively managing room space ratio, renovating and relaunching the existing banqueting space (EQ:IQ) : we were able to increase catering revenue by 66% and group revenue by a huge margin of 122%. In spite of an increase in F&B revenue which has a lower profit margin, we effectively managed costs to achieve a GOP growth of 46% in turn winning the Hyatt F&B financial performance challenge 2018 South West Asia region.

Further to that successfully implemented various key cost saving initiatives such as installation of VFD , Heat pump, condensate recovery ,solar panels which led to a HLP saving of 607k KWh and 21K Ltrs of high speed diesel amounting to massive savings of INR 1 crore in year.

Customer satisfaction was one of the key for highest customer service score in Hyatt Regency Brand, TripAdvisor rank also grew from from 17 to no. 4.