Emerging Opportunities in the Indian Hospitality Sector

The global hospitality sector has seen a major shift in recent times with major hotel players starting new chains to cater to an emerging class of traveller, the young and moneyed. As a result of this players have introduced new chains targeting the millennial set as well as providing them with amenities catering to their whims and fancies. What has also changed in recent years is high net worth individuals from emerging nations such as Brazil, Russia, India & China travelling to the west to the extent of replacing the Japanese as the most widely travelled set. As for the avid business traveller, most of the top global chains have also introduced low end budget hotels catering to this dominating segment of the market in every corner of the planet.

So what do these new customers want? They want to be checked in as soon as possible and don’t want to wait to be checked in. Being a highly educated set, they will voice their opinions on social media if there is a small yet avoidable situation. Also as a result of increased competition from both international players as well as local chains in countries, customers are looking to be wowed from the hotel they are staying in, even till date free WiFi is the one of the biggest ‘crowd pullers’ apart from room upgrades and free meals. As mentioned above the number of international travellers has seen a growth especially from emerging markets therefore hotels need to get themselves acclimatized to various cultures as well as offering a variety of services to cater to these clients. For example, a lot of Indian travellers travelling to the west are offered free and sometimes Jain food as a part of their travel packages. It is these small things that make a difference and get the customers coming back for more.

The internet and social media has also changed how the hospitality sector works. Potential customers log into websites such as Tripadvisor and Yelp, look at reviews of different properties before making a sound decision on booking a room on a Makemytrip.com or a Yatra.com. Additionally, the arrival of rent-a-room services such as AirBnb have also changed the market by offering short term lets globally with services at par with full-service hotels. 

So what are the opportunities for the Indian hotel industry then? First of all, the emergence of new cities such as the NCR region around Delhi as well as the cities of Pune, Hyderabad, etc are proving to be boon for the sector. Moreover, allowance of up to 100% of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the sector has given both international as well as domestic chains a reason to smile. Additionally, real estate developers are also seeing the hospitality sector as a means of leverage to sell their unsold commercial inventory by packaging a luxury hotel with a mall. However what needs to be looked in terms of the operational side is the quality of manpower that is coming out of the various hotel management institutes in the country. The hospitality institutes need to provide more career oriented and practical courses that provide more hands-on experience to hotel management graduates. Lastly, they need to take a more internationally recognized view of their training & development. 

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