ITC’s Mumbai hotel is using service strategy
and
positioning to emerge as market leader
In a few square kilometres of North
Mumbai real estate that will see a battle break out over 2,000 new hotel rooms in another
six months, one hotel has begun to consolidate its position as the leader in the market.
ITC’s new hotel, financed entirely from internal accruals, has been a while in the
making, but has added a flush of excitement to what had become the company’s almost
stagnant business. But now, the lights rarely go off in the offices of the Grand Maratha
Sheraton & Towers as executives burn the midnight oil. For vice president and general
manager Hans E Koch, "It is an exciting experience."
It isn’t an experience Koch is
unfamiliar with – he’s been part of the opening team of a large number of hotels
in Asia – nor is it something new to ITC’s Welcomgroup which had set a rapid
pace in developing new hotels in the seventies and early eighties. Somewhere, though, the
pace had slackened, but the fever is clearly back, and the Grand Maratha, its newest
offering in a long time, boasts all the things the company had once been identified with
– technology, architecture, cuisine, service. Left unsaid, it’s also becoming
clear that the Grand Maratha is all set to unseat New Delhi’s Maurya Sheraton as the
company’s flagship property.
Located on an avenue where the Meridien and
the Grand Hyatt are across the street, the Grand Maratha has no pretensions to
contemporary architecture, having opted for the signature look of a sprawling edifice in
the tradition of the grand hotels of the early 19th century. In so doing, it
has opted for a less flamboyant, more rooted sense of architecture and interior spaces.
The 1.75 lakh square feet of stone it uses for its cladding and pillars are patterned on
the 18th and 19th century Victorian buildings such as the General
Post Office, Prince of Wales Museum, Victoria Terminus and Gateway of India. In so doing,
it has picked features from the Fort area familiar to most Mumbaikars – the arched
corrodors of the shopping districts and university buildings, the domed roof of VT, the
arch duplicating the Gateway of India, and even a version of the popular Flora Fountain.
An English garden has been laid along one side.
Ashwin Moodliar, who heads the hotel’s
sales and marketing team, believes no other hotel in Mumbai can match up to the Grand
Maratha. "No new hotel has this space," he indicates the individual floor
lobbies and generous public spaces, "because they would rather add more rooms. And
none of the older hotels can offer our cutting edge technology." He’s probably
right : from temperature and ionization of the air that is sensor controlled to remove
stale odours and bring in fresh air, to floor junctions in the banquetting areas that
become assembly points for all conferencing aids, to in-room fax machines and interactive
TVs that provide internet access, the hotel has provided facilities keeping the corporate
traveller in mind.
Even room facilities begin from the
group’s executive club level, and include its Sheraton Towers and now its ITC One
– the only hotel outside of the Maurya to have this level of sophisticated
facilities.
The rooms, all of them running around a
central atrium that is built like a conservatory and houses its 24-hour Peshwa Pavilion
restaurant, are large, the bathrooms larger. In a city where space is shrinking, it is
this that may well become the hotel’s USP. The accoutrements are lavish – silk,
brocade, art, wooden floors and screens – but the break from the pattern of the
standard hotel bathroom is refreshing.
If the hotel’s generous stone facade
is unfortunately lost to the guest from the moment he enters the hotel, its soothing white
interiors are calming. Credit for that can be claimed by London-based designer Francesca
Basu who, unfortunately, seems to have gone overboard with the use of Paithani silk saree
borders. What works very well, though, is the entry from the impressive porte cochere to
an intimately small lobby that opens out, in turn, to the conservatory-like Peshwa
Pavilion. White wooden lattices and screens complete the entire inner space suspended
under a glass roof. Strung along the verandahs on either side of the conservatory are the
hotel’s other restaurants.
Two of these are ITC’s branded
products – Dum Pukht, here with an extended menu, and Peshawari, which of course is
the Bukhara with no change in its decor or menu. An unusual concept is Festivals, a
restaurant that has a Mediterranean feel but no fixed menu. Every few months, the hotel
flies in chefs from different parts of the world to literally, host international food
festivals. At the time of this writer’s visit, the Thai menu was in the process of
giving way to Lebanese fare. "It is," says executive chief Matthew Cropp, who
has followed Koch from Shanghai, "a very expensive exercise since we have to fly in
the chefs and ingredients from overseas every other month."
But it’s part of the hotel’s
leadership programme. "We’ve toyed with a number of cuisine ideas,"
confirms food and beverage manager Zubin Songadwala. While the idea of a Parsi restaurant
was dropped, a limited Parsi menu is offered at Dum Pukht. "We want to make our
restaurants central to a Mumbaikar’s life," he says. Given that the new hotels
in the vicinity have either smaller restaurants, or have chosen not to emphasise their
food and beverage service, the Grand Maratha could be in a win-win situation. Its Bombay
High – a friendly, spacious lounge more than just a bar – is flanked to one side
by Catherine’s where the garden-like ambience is the hotel’s fine-dining,flambe
restaurant. Here, Cropp is planning to serve high tea in the afternoon and oysters in the
evening.
A few month’s later, on another side,
Pan Asian will open. It will feature five interactive kitchens to serve Chinese, Thai,
Mongolian, Korean and Malaysian cuisines. This is beside Upper Crust, the small but
elegant dining room that is open only to those residing in Sheraton Towers or ITC One.
Club guests have their own, separate lounge where beverages and snacks are served.
Manager Dipak Haksar is confident the Grand
Maratha is positioned not against the new hotels in the vicinity but quite clearly the Taj
and the Oberoi. It’s his argument that businesses are shifting rapidly to the closer
Bandra-Kurla complex, that guests want to be closer to the airport, but even more that
"they want to be in a hotel where they can feel at home". The Grand Maratha is a
step in that direction. That the luxury is understated is quietly evident. The usual
services – from in-room tea/coffee makers to butlers, a business centre and flexible
banquetting areas, and a health club next to a charming pool – are all at hand.
One pointer that other hotels are beginning
to feel the pinch of the Grand Maratha’s positioning and strategy is the use of
rumours. One senior and prominent hotelier claims the Grand Maratha’s average room
recoveries are a mere Rs.4,000, which Koch refutes (they’re Rs.6,400 at present
according to him). With the dirty tricks department going into overdrive, it’s
indicative of the encroachment the Grand Maratha has begun to make into Mumbai room sales.
"Why else," Koch asks, "would we be getting ready to commission a second
hotel in Mumbai’s Parel?" That’s one for the competition to answer.
Kishore Singh
