HOSPITALITY BOUNCE BACK

SUBMITTED BY JEET THAKKAR

PRN20210213060141

Q.1 How the hospitality industry has fared during last one and half
years of pandemic?

During pandemic in 2020, the first wave, the hotel industry and restaurants are in
complete lockdown. Within a month, majority of the hotels turned their rooms into
beds for patients; here they done their corporate social responsibility with very
good manner.

Hotels did a great job by providing their rooms for beds for COVID patient, by
doing this, they not only done their responsibility to provide space for a particular
person and giving them hospitality but they also earn from the government and
also by adapting the ‘14 Days package’ for quarantine for covid patient and
individual coming from another state/country. Now what they did by launching
this package?

Hotels tied up with private hospitals by providing the beds and food (Suggested by
doctor). As hospitals have limited space, and cases surges sky rocket in 2020 may-
June. Hospitals were running out of beds, hotels come out to solve this issue and
launched this package.

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Hotels with few rooms changed their strategy and tied up with local restaurants;
they provided food in bulk for government hospitals and quarantine centres run by
governments and non profitable institutions.

During the second wave, the remote hotels and resort saw growth because in the
second wave, government applied ‘the partial lockdown strategy’ . Which gives
countey to run economy in slow manner, the shop keepers and cafes are allowed to
open for short span of time. But the hotels were not allowed to re-open in full
capacity.
The resort who were operating far from city area, they saw overbooked their rooms
as people were willing to travel despite it was pandemic because hotels and resorts
‘Re-Brand’ their selves and give people confidence that they are safer in hotels
than their own house.

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Q-2 Different strategies hospitality companies have adopted to come out of
adverse external business environment

The three-star budget hotel group, FabHotels has decided to sanitize all its
properties every two hours. They have installed signs on the floors to signify the
importance of social distancing. Informational Covid-19 posters have also been put
around the properties to encourage people to follow the new norms.

Hotel chain Oyo is training its partners on how to maintain sanitisation and
hygiene, and which protective equipment must be stocked up. The company will
conduct regular audit checks to ensure its guidelines are being followed.
Right now the company trained their 1,000 hotel partners in this program.

US-based multi-national hospitality group, Radisson Hotels has devised an

exhaustive 20-step protocol. These steps range from packing TV remote controls in
protective bags to regular monitoring of air filters.

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Q- 3 Strategies hospitality industry is going to adopt to brace itself against any
such pandemic in future.

Hotel industry adapted the ‘SOLAR PHILOSOPHY’ which stands for

Sustainability, Optimistically, Learn, Adapt, Responsibility to fulfil needs.

The hospitality industry in Indian and in globe, have different strategies to

overcome and bounce back from loss due to pandemic.

During lockdown, the hospitality industry fond the way to run their business in
slow manner.

The hospitality industry will bounce back in 2023, if we follow the statistics of
vaccinated people.
Yet there is no certainty the world will open 100%, but the domestic market is
hope for hospitality industry. As there are many fully vaccinated people who are
willing to travel. There is a term called ‘revenge travelling’ which is happening
right now in India; which is why all tourism places are flooded with people. This is
good sign for hotels and restaurants.

Strategies of hospitality industry:

1. Understand post-pandemic guests’ behavior:

Consumer changed their perspective to travel, which means consumer will
priorities hygiene first, not the amount. To attract customers hotels are made this
compulsory for their employees and their family to get full vaccination.

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2. Digitalization a Priority
Hotels and restaurants after pandemic saw the importance of digitalization.
To win the confidence of their customers, Hotels and restaurants priorities to work
on:
• Giving offer and discounts on different website portals (Make my trips, Trivago
etc.)
• Optimize and rebuilt their websites by showing precaution done by them,
protocols followed by them, to ensure customer by showing the testimonials of
post Covid customers and their satisfaction.

3. Flexible Cancellation Policy:

Pre pandemic, majority of the hotels were giving flexibility to consumer to cancel
their booking but they have to cancel before some days earlier and sometimes the
amount they got was full amount. After post pandemic the hotels should Adapt ‘
flexible cancellation policy ‘. Customer should get a chance to cancel anytime ,
and they should get full amount in return. By doing this, hotels can gain the good
relation with customers as they are priorities their customers first.

4. Cost cutting strategy

To overcome the losses due to pandemic, hotels are restructuring their entire
operation department, finance department and management department.

Operation department:
Before pandemic, hotels used to order the more amount of raw materials than they
should (According to research) but after post-pandemic, hotels are following the
‘Domino Effect Shelfing’ which is followed by Walmart to reduce the cost of
transportation and raw material.

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Finance department:
To cut the cost to run entire hotel, finance department is using strategy in which
first they understand the season in which most customers book their hotel rooms
and in which season the room booking is low.
In highest booking season, the finance department increase the cost of food or
decrease the quantity of food served by the hotel. And for for the season with
lowest booking ratio, the cost of room will decrease.

Management department:
Hotels are giving training to their employees how to follow covid protocols and
how to treat customers. This will ensure the customers that they are safe and hotel
is taking appropriate steps in terms of hygiene.