Category Archives: Hotels

Ramada by Wyndham hotel at The Mall, Mussoorie, with an inventory of 45-rooms, has opened its doors. Owned by RKM Enterprises, the hotel is strategically located at Picture Palace on the Mall, which ensures that you are just a walk away from the best that Mussoorie has to offer. “It gives us great pleasure to be able to bring affordable luxury lodging accommodations to the Queen of Hills- Mussoorie community and we look forward to welcoming travellers to the area’s newest hotel,” said Mr. Rakesh Mediratta, the hotel’s owner. Nikhil Sharma, Area Director Eurasia, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts said: “Ramada by Wyndham Mussoorie Mall Road is our second hotel in hill state of Uttarakhand and our first hotel in Mussoorie, a sought-after destination known for its Colonial charm, beautiful churches and scenic surroundings. We are proud to introduce another Ramada by Wyndham hotel to the Uttarakhand market and we look forward to welcoming guests looking to venture out to pristine hills of the north.”

Manish Kriplani, MD, Baywatch Travels, has launched Baywatch Stayzz, which include serviced luxury villas and houses for rent. “There was a huge void of having luxury full-service villas, where travellers can relax with having dedicated butler service, and housekeeper, chef and other resources at their disposal. We found that there was demand and availability for the same, which was a great prospect. We have 9 villas as of now and we plan to have 50 such villas in the next 2-3 months in Chennai. While some villas we are obtaining on lease, some are on revenue share, while for others we are only doing sales & marketing. While we have made PDF brochures now, we are preparing a very robust e-commerce website portal, where we are going to host all these villas and which will have all the information about them.”

Sarovar Hotels and Resorts continues to expand its leisure portfolio with the signing of its second hotel in Mussoorie – Rasa Sarovar Premiere. An upscale hotel nestled in the foothills of the Garhwal Himalayan range, will offer an array of dining choices, state-of-the- art fitness centre, Bar, Spa centre and a conference hall. All guest rooms will feature private pools and gardens.

Luxury hospitality industry leader Hemant Mediratta recently launched a new river cruise brand, Antara Luxury River Cruises. Joining the company as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Mediratta has laid the agenda and a clear roadmap for expansion with new cruise ships and enhanced service offerings. He earlier served as Senior Vice President at Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.

According to a JLL report, Bengaluru’s hotel sector performance declined 59% in RevPAR in YTD July 2020 (YoY) but is expected to bottom out in Q4 2020 as domestic travel gains momentum. Occupancy was also down 53% YTD July (YoY)

Serafino Cota, President, Small & Medium Hotels Associations, says, “Our members don’t want to keep their hotels open right now. While the government is trying to show that it opening the state to tourism, it is not extending any help to us. Even if we get one guest with great difficulty for a few days, the government marks the hotel as ‘operational’ and then they start charging you for full electricity, water bill, etc. So people prefer to close it altogether. We have decided to open only in September 2021.”  

Hotelogix, a Cloud PMS company, AxisRooms, a distribution company and RepUp, a guest experience management company have announced their merger into Hotelogix PTE, headquartered in Singapore. This three-way merger marks the radical beginning of a new era of hospitality solutions that will now be re-imagined and delivered by this integrated platform which will cover operations, distribution, reputation, marketing automation, and guest-facing technologies. The merger has given Hotelogix PTE an aggregate customer base spanning 100+ countries, powering 10000+ hospitality businesses ranging from hotels, resorts, boutique hotels, hostels to aparthotels, campsites, villas, vacation rentals, independents, and chains. With 200+ employees, the new entity has emerged as one of the largest SaaS providers for the hospitality sector in the APAC market and aims at aggregating 20K+ customers in the next 3 years. Hotels today use multiple systems through a guest’s lifecycle, from pre-booking to post-checkout stages, which then require integration of various systems leading to high costs, broken experience, delayed implementation, and fragmented support. Worst still, it leaves guests with sub-optimal stay experience. The core objective of the merger is to harness the power of data across operations, distribution and customer experience systems to deliver exceptional value and seamless experience to its clients’ customers. Aditya Sanghi who will continue to be the CEO at Hotelogix, said “With this merger, we will have a wide range of solutions to offer which will give superior value to our customers and increase our share of wallet. This definitely gives us a huge competitive edge against our competitors at a global level.” “I am very excited to work with the combined leadership, people, customers, partners and technologies in our journey ahead”, further added Aditya. Anil Kumar Prasanna, CEO at AxisRooms said “The future of hotel …

The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has made written representations to the Hon. Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, the Hon. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur and to the Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Shaktikanta Das, I.A.S. requesting for an extension of moratorium for additional three months. The hotel industry has made no progress in terms of bookings even after several states unlocked and where hotels resumed operations. The industry has registered average occupancy levels at 10 to 20 per cent. With rental and salary bills, statutory payments and other establishment costs, hotels are finding it unviable to carry on running businesses. FHRAI has informed the Ministry that an extension of moratorium at this time could help hotels restructure existing loans since the process of restructuring is time consuming. Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President of FHRAI and President of Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI), says, “For more than four months, hotels and restaurants have remained shut and have earned no revenue throughout the lockdown. There is no improvement in forward bookings and wherever hotels and restaurants have opened, the footfalls are negligible. In addition to the monthly outgoings and the statutory levies, we now have to spend more on employing hygiene and safety measures to follow the SOPs and guidelines issued by the Central and State governments. On account of all this, the debt restructuring plan announced by the RBI for the stressed MSMEs is not going to help the sector. Therefore we have urged that the moratorium be extended by a further three months.”

Thailand’s Dusit International is all set to re-enter the Indian market after the company announced its expansion in India and joined hands with real estate and hospitality major Jain Group. They will together set up a new 126-room property in New Town, Rajarhat, Kolkata by Q2 of 2022 with an investment of Rs 80 crore.

Yatra Online has announced its collaboration with Amazon Business, in an effort to provide hospitality partners with products, catering to the hospitality segment.- Hospitality partners can access over 15 crore products ranging from commercial-grade kitchen appliances, home décor products, large appliances, consumer electronics, office supplies and much more with GST invoice and with discounts linked to bulk volume purchase. Commenting on this association Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder & CEO, Yatra.com, said, “We are glad to announce our association with Amazon Business to help our hospitality partners for all their daily and monthly product requirements. This is another step towards diversification of our portfolio beyond travel. Backed with our extensive network of hotels across India, we are moving ahead to extend our portfolio through seamless integration on the Yatra partner platform. Amazon has been a market leader in the e-commerce space and through Amazon Business, we want to offer an avenue to our partners where necessities are just a ‘click’ away.” Sharing his comments on the tie-up, Peter George, Director, Amazon Business, said, “We are happy to partner with Yatra.com and help its hospitality partners get access to a one stop destination for all their emerging operational needs. Amazon Business marketplace helps business customers conveniently discover and save on over 15 Cr products ranging from commercial grade kitchen appliances, Large Appliances, Home Décor, Office supplies and storage solutions and more with the added advantage of GST invoice for input tax credit and bulk purchase discounts. The partnership will help our sellers reach lakhs of hotels across the country as they kick-start operations again.”     This initiative is live on Yatra’s hospitality partner platform and is available pan-India. Extending the company’s purpose of …