It might not believe in shouting its presence from the rooftops, but as one of the first brands in the budget hotel segment, Ginger accelerated the acceptance of this segment amongst the frequent travellers in India. Of course, one of the factors that added to its cause was the fact that Ginger is owned by Roots Corporation Ltd, which is a part of the Tata Group, admits PK Mohankumar, MD and CEO. But there is nothing even remotely gingerly about this industry veteran who, in the last 40 years as a hotelier, has travelled the world at various influential positions for the Taj brand and has been the part of the industry growth.
Mohankumar believes that the beginning of the industry with the first few hotels was more an opportunistic response rather than a strategic infrastructure development – a tactical response to the foreign tourists coming into India. “The reason for the hotel industry to even come up was to cater to these foreign tourists and rich Indians. This resulted in five star luxury hotels coming up as the tourists were not the middle class, mid-market people, they were the affluent Westerners,” says Mohankumar. What was created as a result were a whole host of top luxury hotels and the perception that hotels meant expensive luxury. But what it left was a huge vacuum – between that and the family-owned properties, which were a tradition as old as the legendary Indian hospitality.
Mohankumar gives credit of the original segmentation of the industry to Camellia Panjabi, who realised what was happening globally and replicated the same in India for the Taj Group – by creating the Taj Residencies and Taj Luxuries. “Though we were the pioneers, there was no real need for segmentation or productisation of the industry till 9/11, when suddenly the whole overseas market which we depended so heavily on, collapsed coupled with the global recession,” he explains. One disaster opens another window of opportunity – and apparently, this one did for the Indian industry as they were forced to look inwards and found a goldmine of opportunity in the domestic market. “They have the propensity to pay and sustained the Indian hospitality industry post 9/11. For almost two years we had to completely depend on the domestic holiday goer and there were lot of tourist as well as business destinations which were very cyclical in nature,” reveals Mohankumar.
Ratan Tata, the head honcho of the Tata Group then, always dreamt of creating products that are affordable yet profitable for the company – for the Bharat that is beyond the urban India. This is made up of the millions of aspirational Indians. “Ginger, in that sense, was the brainchild of that philosophy and thinking. The first thought was to create a hotel, which is a slice of a five-star hotel, but priced at Rs1,000,” says Mohankumar about the first Ginger that was launched by Ratan Tata at Whitefield, Bengaluru. While the product was created for the budget space, the marketing team felt that it was not fashionable to call it so. The disconnect came from the perception of a hotel – that of being a five star. “Therefore, in 2004 the Ginger Whitefield was launched as a ‘smart basics’ property at Rs990. Till today, it has been one of the best performing Ginger Hotels in our group,” reveals the CEO, who believes that India is all about mid-market, and economy and budget hotels, and affordable price points. Drawing a parallel with Indigo Airlines, he explains how they are low-cost, not cheap.
