Mohan Padmanabhan
DAVID Ogilvy, the legendary adman, said
that "the pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but
it can be infinitely more satisfying". Surely, there comes a time when costs and
prices are not things to think about anymore: "all that matters is value- the
ultimate value of what one delivers." And, that’s exactly what has been done,
claim ITC insiders, commenting on the newest addition to the ITC Welcomgroup family of
hotels in Kolkata.
The completion of ITC’s five-star
super deluxe hotel in the city, ITC Sonar Bangla, heralds the much- awaited completion of
the ITC Sheraton chain of high quality hotels in the top metro cities of India, which the
company had committed itself to achieve some years ago. ITC Sonar Bangla (ITC SB) follows
in the distinguished line of the flagship ITC Hotel Maurya Sheraton & Towers (New
Delhi), ITC Hotel Grand Maratha (Mumbai), Chola Sheraton (Chennai), WelcomHotel Mughal
Sheraton (Agra), Grand Kakatiya Sheraton & Towers (Hyderabad), ITC Hotel Windsor
Sheraton & Towers (Bangalore) and Rajputana Palace Sheraton (Jaipur).
The great advantage of a chain in the
hospitality business is that once a particular hotel catches the fancy of the discerning
customer in a metro city, he always looks for the blood brothers and cousins in different
cities and towns.
Constructed on 16.5 acres of land (which
includes a nearly 13-acre mini golf course and boasts extensive landscaping) on the first
leg approach of the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, opposite the Science City, ITC SB is
being billed as the first such "Biz Resort", within the confines of a business
city. It is also being referred to as a kind of "Boutique Hotel", owing to some
of the new features that have been built in.
The exclusive features of a resort hotel,
with full compliance towards international environmental standards, have been added to a
super deluxe five-star outfit, which will offer three categories of rooms- Executive Club,
Sheraton Towers and the high end ITC One. The designing by Kerry Hill is done in such a
manner that the 240-room hotel, which has cost Rs 240 crore, can easily be scaled up to
1,000 rooms, sources said.
According to ITC insiders associated with
the project from day one, such deluxe hotels generally portray a strong urban bias, but
ITC SB on the evening of December 31, after which the hotel will go through test marketing
and a kind of soft opening. The rates are expected to be frozen only in the early part of
2003-04. Construction of the hotel began in January 2000, and has been completed as per
schedule.
Hosting the choicest of Welcomgroup chain
of speciality restaurants, ITC SB has the 24-hour 120-seater multi-cuisine Eden Pavillion
restaurant, which also offers authentic Lebanese food, the renowned Dum Pukht which has
four types of cuisine, the West View Bar and Grill (described as the restaurant within a
kitchen where the customer’s choice is cooked in wines and liqueurs and sauces of
international class), the Peshawari, famous for its robust North West Frontier cuisine,
the Irish Pub and discotheque labelled Dublin, a unique Pan Asian cuisine block, with
choices of Mongolian, Korean, Chinese or Japanese food and the Health Spa, spaciously
located behind the hotel.
The Spa Café offers breakfast, lunch and
dinner, and will also have a demonstration kitchen for health food fanatics. And as for
the lounges, there will be the Bay of Bengal and the Darjeeling Lounge with spacious
boardrooms attached, besides exclusive tea lounges for residents who value privacy.
As for banqueting, a 7,000 sq. ft. banquet
hall with a 20-foot high ceiling is said to be the main one, with an additional 7,000 sq.
ft. outside the hall, specially designed to cater to segmented requirements of corporates
and others.
