Corona second wave: Hotel bookings witness a major slump! India’s hospitality market is as soon as once again grappling with the influence of state-certain lockdowns as the surge in coronavirus circumstances continues to spiral across the nation. Many stakeholders pin their optimistic outlook on bookings choosing up as soon as the vaccination push becomes more robust. More importantly, hotels are innovating with new and emerging models of sustainable commitments to lessen carbon emissions and plastic waste.
Second wave hits hotel bookings
Sharing insights exclusively with TheSpuzz, Shahzad Aslam, Head – Sales at Leisure Hotels Group says, “The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on all industries, with travel, hospitality and aviation bearing the brunt of the damage of the second wave. Bookings have fallen by more than 75 percent as a result of the second COVID wave and new restrictions imposed by state governments. However, we are optimistic that the forthcoming vaccination push would result in an increase in booking trends from June onwards. We continue to receive enquiries this month from travellers searching for Staycation and Workcation packages in our resorts, which are naturally isolated and in remote locations.”
New hotel launches continue
However, current launches by unique hotels also indicate the uptick in travel demand across leisure destinations as enquiries for staycations and workcations continue.
Marking its 12th hotel beneath its Beacon brand, Concept Hospitality has opened a 40 area enterprise hotel on Ashram Road, which is the industrial hub of Ahmedabad. Located close to Sabarmati ashram, Sabarmati river front and more, the Kanak Beacon Hotel is in proximity to the most important sightseeing attractions in the city.
“We are the largest hospitality player in Gujarat. Ahmedabad being the capital city is extremely important from a business perspective. We already have The Fern Ahmedabad which is an upscale hotel. The Beacon brand per se is a smart efficient hotel brand in our portfolio. It deals with the mid market segment. We have been witnessing a demand for such a mid level hotel. Now that we got the right opportunity we opened Kanak Beacon,” informs Suhail Kannampilly, CEO Concept Hospitality Pvt Ltd,
He additional highlights, “We are following a very strict policy from the beginning of the pandemic. We launched a Staygiene program to improve hygiene standards across all our properties. These guidelines which include contactless services as well, have been thoroughly implemented across the entire group.”
Beach goers may well want to take note of a further new launch: The Westin Goa. Marking the brand’s debut in Goa, the hotel is a 40-minute drive from the Goa International Airport at Dabolim. True to the spirit of Goan hospitality, the hotel has rolled out the red carpet to pamper guests with its premium hospitality offerings. Guests can avail relaxing massages, body wraps, bath rituals and exfoliation treatment options and facials at Westin Heavenly Spa.
Terming the debut launch in Goa as the 9th Westin home in India, Neeraj Govil- Senior Vice President, Operations APEC, Marriott International expressed optimism at expanding the brand’s signature properly becoming supplying to more travellers.
‘Eat Well’ is one of the 3 core pillars of the encounter that the Westin presents, with regional cuisine being the showstopper and its all day dining restaurant ‘The Market’ supplying overall health conscious culinary possibilities. For these who love cocktails, its lobby bar ‘Haven’ presents cocktails inspired by Goa, when Anjuna Coffee and Co offer you freshly brewed coffees alongside pastries and sandwiches and revitalizing drinks.
Hotels concentrate on distinctive sustainable commitments
Besides new hotel launches, sustainability commitments are also becoming stepped up across the hospitality market.
Recently, Andaz Delhi teamed up with a Gurgaon-based WaterTech startup Swajal WaterCute to adopt sustainable glass water bottles to replace plastic water bottles for all their hotel rooms. This move is estimated to save more than hundred tonnes of plastic waste and 4 hundred tonnes of carbon emissions more than the next 5 years.
Notably, Andaz Delhi is the initially hotel to run the most recent GenX5 platform rolled out by Swajal WaterCube, which enables just about every bottle to be sanitised, washed, sterilised and then filled.
Dr. Vibha Tripathi, an IIT alumnus and Swajal WaterCube’s CEO highlights that their startup is “a technology first start up in water” which has an inbuilt inventory management program made for the hospitality segment.
Notably, the startup claims to be the ‘only system in the world designed for hotel glass water bottles’ to allow finish-to-finish automated options.
Wondering how this glass water bottle functions?
Swajal WaterCube states that they have created a proprietary IoT platform to monitor the top quality of every drop of water in true time. So, every glass water bottle functions on the notion of ‘Zero Mile Water’, which implies that glass bottles are recirculated inside hotel premises.
Simply place, it reduces carbon footprint by removing the want to retain transporting the bottle back and forth from a central program. Given that the notion of Zero-Mile water is to provide carbon-no cost and plastic-no cost mineral water, WaterCube’s IoT platform permits the water to be monitored remotely.
While the second wave of corona has disrupted day to day life of most folks, it is clear that the continuing spread has made it necessary for travellers to hit the pause button on their travel plans at least for now.
The only silver lining is that hospitality stakeholders are optimistic that ‘this too shall pass’ and by June, travel and hotel bookings are most likely to witness an uptick in demand as soon as once again.