For as long as he can remember, Puneet Dhawan nursed a desire to join the hospitality business. This was stoked by a zeal to travel, an eagerness to experience new adventures and explore the world. After completing his education in César Ritz Colleges Switzerland and University of Massachusetts Amherst, he dived straight in the industry as an F&B management trainee in Philippines’ Mandarin Oriental. But his career-defining movement occurred when he joined Accor in 1998 as F&B Director of Novotel Century Hong Kong. He has been with the European hotel chain since then, managing key positions in Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, the UAE and India.
When Jean-Michel Cassé retired as Accor’s COO for India and South Asia, Dhawan succeeded him as Senior VP-Operations, India and South Asia. There was just one hiccup in what should have otherwise been a smooth transition – the country was in lockdown phase, which had hit the hospitality industry really hard. It was hardly the expected reception while taking the helm.
However, to tackle this challenge head on, Dhawan got busy building a resilient communication strategy with guests, owners, partners and teams. “After landing in India, my priority was to meet all owners to understand their evolving needs, as well as hotel teams across locations to formulate a recovery plan in detail and assist hotels in their reopening and sustainability approach.
During this time, I visited majority of our 52 hotels in India, ensuring the teams of their wellbeing and safety,” he recalled. Dhawan was ably supported by Kerrie Hannaford, VP-Commercial, Accor India and South Asia in the company’s endeavours to stay agile by keeping an eye on changing trends and swiftly working with the teams to deliver top-notch services to guests. “In terms of planning, we pivoted from the usual short and long-term plans to take a more flexible approach by concentrating on our ALLSAFE protocols and messaging. We are looking at everything quarter by quarter to stay aligned with changing guest prefer ences, government restrictions and travel policies,” she stated. While the future is still uncertain, she is cautiously optimistic about 2021.
LEADING WITH COMPASSION
When he took charge of operations in August 2020, the hospitality industry had hit the pause button. Despite being Europe’s biggest hotel group, Accor announced plans to cut 1,000 jobs as part of a ¤200
million annual cost saving plan to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus crisis. “It is difficult to implement cost saving measures in our industry without it having an effect on staff,” CFO, Jean-Jacques Morin stated, while making this announcement.
Nonetheless, the hotel chain decided to do things with compassion and launched the ‘ALL Heartist’, a
€70 million COVID-19 special purpose vehicle to assist employees. “As of December, more than INR 7.5 crore has been distributed to 2,500 employees in India who were affected by the pandemic,” Dhawan
revealed.
Grand Mercure Bengaluru at Gopalan Mall could not open formally in 2020, as planned, due to lockdown. While it hosted few weddings during the Unlock phase, the property will finally throw open its doors to the public in January 2021.
With trust becoming the new currency in business, the company did its best to regain guest confidence. It channelised its resources to ensure high standards of safety and hygiene across properties. This resulted in the Accor’s ALLSAFE cleanliness and prevention standards, which it launched in association with Bureau Veritas.
At the same time, Dhawan believed that the show must go on when it came to brand expansion, COVID-19 or not. Accor, which has been operating in India for 15 years, has a network of 52 hotels across 23 gateway cities in India and South Asia with close to 10,000 keys.
To keep the juggernaut rolling, it announced Novotel in Chandigarh amongst other openings. “As a leading international operator in the country, we continue to grow our network with our owner partners on the back of a strong development pipeline. We look forward to launching the iconic Raffles in India at Udaipur and Jaipur in 2021 and 2022, respectively,” Dhawan announced.
He added that Novotel, which now forms the largest network of midscale hotels in the country with 20 operational hotels, will see the addition of five more properties to its portfolio. The ibis brand, which Accor manages in partnership with InterGlobe Hotels, will continue to expand with the opening of ibis
Vikhroli, Mumbai in 2021, making it the 20th property under this title in India. ibis Mumbai LBS Road is scheduled to open next year.
A DIVERGENT PORTFOLIO
With a well-rounded portfolio of luxury, premium, mid-scale, and economy categories Accor can cater to guests across various segments. This has emerged as the company’s strongest asset in India where there will always be a demand for hotels in varied divisions to suit needs of heterogeneous guests.
“Midscale and economy hotels are usually preferred by guests given their value, price and ability to offer consistent experience, such as at our Novotel and ibis brands,” Hannaford pointed out. “Especially now, family and leisure guests are selecting luxury and resort stays for holistic experiences under one roof, far from the city’s hustle. Travellers are placing even greater premium on privacy and space.” This is why she strongly believes that upscale hospitality brands, like Raffles, will thrive in India, and there will always be an opportunity for the luxury segment to rise.
Many of the Accor’s hotels are offering the Work@hotel concept, including Sofitel Mumbai BKC (above), some Novotel and all ibis properties
Over the years, Accor’s overall brand strategy approach has shifted from ‘product centric’ to ‘client-centric’, wherein it focuses more on serving a customer in all their varied personas and changing expectations. Hence, it identifies a gap in the market and makes that lacunae its key strategic growth pillar to focus on the luxury and lifestyle segments. Its global portfolio encompasses 40 brands, including some indigenous entities. These are then introduced in each region, after a detailed study on their long-term viability. The rationale is that brands are a short-cut to quick decision-making process in a crowded marketplace.
“The intent was, and continues to be, that Accor creates an extensive and comprehensive portfolio of brands that give all the options to guests, positively impacts guest acquisition and retention with options
of new product combined with our loyalty program,” explained Dhawan. Accor has nine brands in India – operational and under active development – across the luxury, premium, upper midscale, midscale and
economy segments. It is focussed on expanding its luxury and premium brands portfolio in India, in particular with the Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel and Pullman brands.
“For our luxury brand, Fairmont, we see opportunities for development in markets such as Mumbai, Gurgaon, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Goa and various other leisure locations. We are actively engaged with some of our key partners for key of these developments,” Dhawan stated.
LISTENING AND UNDERSTANDING
The hospitality industry is home to overconfident developers and owners who routinely tell hoteliers how to run their properties. In contemporary times, most owners are concerned about operational efficiency and cost management in a bid to get back on track to commercial revival.
Aware of this, Kerrie and Dhawan have realised the merit of listening to their angst as well as concerns and addressing it. And more often than not, a patient listening resolves most issues. The duo work in close tandem with owners by regularly communicating and discussing recovery strategies with them. “We are communicating with our stakeholders about simple, yet effective, steps that Accor is taking across all areas of the hotels for optimising and saving the cost consistently in day-to-day operations. We
have always believed in sustainable, effective, and efficient use of our resources. In the present scenario, we are restructuring and resorting to cost efficiencies in every possible way while preserving the infrastructure,” Hannaford informed.
THE SAFE APPROACH
Fortunately, the progressive unlocking has proffered people an opportunity to step out or travel while keeping safety as a key prerequisite. Accor is banking on its ALLSAFE protocols to ensure that its guests enjoy a safe holiday experience at its hotels.
“Across our properties, the recovery strategy has been focussed on the short-term business planning and sticking to the consumer trends while innovating services and experiences,” Dhawan added. Add to this, it has unveiled some lucrative pricing and loyalty rewards as part of its umbrella ‘For the Love of Travel, for the Love of Now’ campaign.
It also expanded its strategic partnerships with airlines and travel industry to offer great value to guests.
A case in point is its partnership with IndiGo 6ERewards, the ‘Welcome back Program’ with Vistara and Indigo as well as the ‘Holiday Safe’ initiative with Thomas Cook and SOTC. While talking about safety, guests started demanding three attributes from hotels – contactless, convenience, instantaneous. The hospitality industry responded by aggressively embracing digitisation, from room bookings, to check-ins, check-outs and payment procedures.
Accor is focussed its luxury and premium brands portfolion in India, in particular with Raffles, Fairmont (above), Sofitel and Pullman brands.
Communication to consumers became more digital – be it through emails, texts, digital menus, or online
payment. This digital prevalence was evident not just in front of the house activities but also for internal
processes like revenue management and human resources.
“At Accor, we have always believed in the use of technology and auto-mation in revenue management. We have a variety of RMS solutions catering to small hotels with simple requirements to large hotels with complex RM requirements. Accor associates with companies such as IDeaS and Infor to develop better technology and algorithms to make reporting and decision making more efficient and profitable,” Hannaford added.
The hospitality major is implementing technology for staff training too. For instance, it has developed an extensive procedure its operational staff internally on iAuditor, a self-assessment platform, which enlists the brands standards, per touch point. This digital tool assists a hotel’s teams and management to focus on enhancing hygiene and cleanliness, temperature checks at the entrance, thereby safeguarding the well-being of guests and employees alike.
SHIFTING TRENDS
The key to success is to uncover the next big innovation early on and then capitalise it. The pandemic impelled hoteliers to foray into newer business avenues and grab every available opportunity to reach out to guests. This is how Accor’s economy and midscale brands, ibis, and Novotel, ventured into the co-working space. It introduced ‘Work@ Hotel’ for professionals who wanted to work outside the monotony of their homes, albeit in a safe environment.
Many of its hotels are already offering this concept, including Sofitel Mumbai BKC and some Novotel hotels, while ibis launched ‘Work@ibis’ at all its 19 properties. While delighted with this move, Dhawan is circumspect about its future. “Undoubtedly, the demand of ‘Work From Hotel’ has increased in the last few months. However, we have to wait for some time to unfold the potential of this segment in the coming days,” he prudent said.
Guests prefer luxury and resort stays for holistic experiences under one roof like the Mercure Goa Devaaya Retreat.
At the same time, while navigating through the pandemic, Accor reached out to its corporate patrons to instil confidence in them. “We have regular meetings with them and have been participating in the industry panels to share dialogue. We are driving strategic partnerships and collaborating in the industry to showcase solidarity and work together to reassure guests that it is safe to travel,” Hannaford elaborated.
As part of its ‘Welcome Back Program’ in partnership with Vistara, SpiceJet and IndiGo airlines, the hotel chain invited its clients from corporate, leisure, wedding, media and entertainment segments for familiarisation trips. These trips showcased their revamped services as well as hygiene and safety norms followed by the hotels and airline partners.
Most hoteliers have an overarching goal to turn the corner in 2021. However, Dhawan and Hannaford have decided to be more specific while mapping out their vision board for Accor this year. They have earmarked aspirational, yet attainable, tasks for their entire team during these times of uncertain demand recovery. And not all of them are easy. After all, easy is a word that expired when COVID-19 struck. Now is the time for smart and quick decisions.
