In talks with the General Manager of The Khyber Himalayan resort and spa

When the work pressure is there, I see a lot of them quitting the industry, not able to manage the pressures which exist with our industry. We are a 24 hour industry and every day is a new day. You might have done fabulous yesterday and maybe you'll be appreciated for it or maybe not. But if you do something wrong, you'll definitely be reprimanded for it. All right, so it is a tough industry to start out with. And if you are there and you dig your heels in, there is nothing like working for your tech.

That's Mohiti. Taking pictures so that we can show online.

Okay.

I was in your mind Searching for L. Searching for truth I couldn't let you go without a request or even a task don't let me never be alone again.

Welcome to the Askavi Arya show where we interview personalities who have been working in the hospitality sector with two primary aims. A, to inspire other hoteliers across the world to understand the best practices in hoteliering. And second, to understand how hoteliers like yourselves are leveraging social media, digital marketing and other tech tools to grow your business. So thank you for taking the time out. Vineet. I know we've known each other for a long time. You're obviously one of the finest hoteliers that we have in the country. You've been managing some great hotels. And I feel that, you know, anybody who's managing a business has to first manage themselves. So if your business is doing well, means that your discipline is doing well. So tell us first that you know, what is that one thing that you do to discipline yourself?

First of all, thank you so much for inviting me in, Abhijit. All right. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, since the time I've entered the industry, I left a very disciplined life. You know, being on time has been the topmost priority as far as I go. In fact, somewhere I'll be before time. So that before you start out your work, you are able to garner as much information when you are not on duty. You know, from the time you start meeting your departmental heads to the various other team members, you should be aware of what has happened when you were off duty. So that requires you to be at least before time. That's what I personally feel. Starting it out, understanding. And then of course, you have got everything in your. The information is crucial for you to start your day. And once you have this information beforehand, it makes the job slightly easier.

Right.

So you're saying that you know punctuality. Not even punctuality. You're saying you know, be there before the battle begins.

Yes, be there before the battle begins so that you are aware, you know, you're not taken or caught unaware. You understand what has happened while you were off duty.

Right.

You are also on top of the things happening. You also know your morning meetings are more fruitful when you are aware of things and you are able to ask correct questions to your team members as well and find solutions, not problems.

Excellent. So now this brings me to my second question. What is that? Everybody does morning meeting, especially, you know, in the whole hotel industry because it's a 24 hour job. So every morning you have to come and catch up with what happened in the morning meetings are sacrosanct in hotels, but everybody has a different way of running morning meetings. So for our audience that's watching in India and abroad, tell us that one thing, just that one thing that makes your morning meetings different from everybody else's.

See, it is more on interaction platform. It is not a complaint forum. You know, morning meetings sometimes tend to become a complaint forum or passing on the box. Our morning meeting is more interactive and if there has been problems to find solutions for them and nobody is pointing fingers at each other.

Very important. That's when people want to come for the meeting also. Otherwise people are scared and they're like.

You know, the idea is not to scare off people for meetings. The idea is for them to be more open, to be more professional, not to take it personally, to share information which will drive the hotel into the right direction. As far as the guest engagement goes and the guest services goes. All right, it's important to keep the guest as a topmost priority and find solutions. Meet infrastructure related, be it service related, be it. Some will be long term solutions. Maybe their problems will exist for some time before we are able to find a correct solution for it. But it's very important that everybody in the team knows and if the problem will be there which will impact guest operations, we should know that what other options can be given to the guest, you know, sure. If you hide it under the carpet then, sorry, there is. If you don't know, you don't know. And what you don't know, you don't find solutions to.

Right, Right.

Excellent. So tell me, you know, when it comes to hoteliers, so, you know, like I said, we're going to address very different audiences in this next 25 minutes that we have together. So all the young hoteliers who are coming into the system, people have just finished their IHM or other hospital institutes and they're Coming into the system and they're getting excited and they're like, what should I look for? You know, there's a route to become a GM from the FMB way. Then the route to become a GM from the operations way. Now there are routes to become maybe GM from digital marketing. You know, you started off, of course, so there are many ways to go to the. To go to the head of the business. So what is your advice to people who are starting off and getting into hospitality?

Well, my advice to them would be before you, of course. It's great to have aim, you know, if you wish to become a GM or you wish to become a department departmental head or you wish to become a director and you require a certain time frame for it, it is great, you know, you give yourself time. But when you come from ihms or any other institutes and when you come to the practical aspect, in fact, for any other job, you need to give yourself time to understand the job very well. And you need to put in 200% to learn lot of people when they come or they become a part of management training or operational training program, they are in a hurry to reach the top ladders. And when the work pressure is there, I see a lot of them quitting the industry, not able to manage the pressures which exist with our industry. We are a 24 hour industry and every day is a new day. You might have done fabulous yesterday and maybe you'll be appreciated for it or maybe not. But if you do something wrong, you'll definitely be reprimanded for it. All right? So it is a tough industry to start out with. And if you are there and you dig your heels in, there's nothing like working for your dad.

So, okay, great. So, you know, so there, there is that you, you brought about a very important point, which is impatience. You know, youngsters, industry, they're like, you know, and they're jumping ship, you know, either say a to get faster salary growth and they're like, I want to reach the ladder the fastest. So is there a fast route or. You should never take the fast route.

See, you should take the fast route. It means jumping the ladders. Because the industry is in need for good people. They might keep hiring your irrespective of whether you work for six months, nine months, because they look at whether you fit in the role which they are thought. Right?

Right.

It is not necessary that you're gaining as much information or gardening, as much knowledge as required for you when you go and head the unit.

Understood?

Once you are there it is not one specific know how of a particular department. You have to have an overall understanding of operations. And if you keep jumping ships and if you keep running towards this, once you are reached that goal, how are you going to manage the people under you when your knowledge is incomplete? Very interesting. How will you gain the respect? No, it's fine you have reached the position, but position itself doesn't necessarily garnish that kind of respect. You have to earn that respect, come what may.

Yeah.

And the thing is the industry, the news travels fast. Every time that there's a GM appointed in the hotel, there are all eyes, everybody's like, you know, what's going to happen to the hotel? You know, it's like, you know, people are expecting their expectations and all of that. So only as somebody who's seasoned and gone through the rigors of, you know, managing people.

And that's very important because at the end of the day we are with all technological advances still are a people driven industry.

Right.

We will manage guests through our team and the team needs to understand technology is there to help them out.

Excellent.

To one interaction which eventually makes the experience for the guest.

Lovely.

Now tell us for all the general managers and other people who are aspiring hospitality people or any manager in any field, any leader, what are the key things that you use to inspire and motivate people? Because you know, it's, it takes a lot of creativity to keep motivating and inspiring people. So the fact that you've been able to run such a beautiful operation, I'm sure that you have some great tips to give us.

Well, see, I honestly believe in walking the talk, you know, by if I expect somebody to be punctual, I will be punctured. If I follow the rules of the hotel, the policies which we have laid down, I'll ensure that I follow them first. So first and foremost, rather than their expectations, I would ensure that I follow as a leader so that they understand what I mean, what I say is what I do, you know. And then of course, making them understand is very crucial for people to carry out their jobs. It's important for them to realize what is expected out of them. I think one of the crucial is training them, of course, you know, giving them opportunities to learn, giving them and showing them a career path within the organization, especially for a standalone property like ours, is also very crucial. So very importantly, you act as a leader by following the things you want other team members to do. You ensure that you have one to one interaction with them, show them the career path you Appreciate them for every available opportunity when you see they are doing the things right. Requirement, if it seems definitely go wrong in, I'll say in solitude rather in front of the team. Going to be managing the team later on themselves as well.

Right.

Excellent. Now you know, so now. So we spoke about impatience, we spoke about leadership, we spoke about how to motivate teams. Now I'd like to know, you know my favorite subject, social media and digital marketing and all of that. So I understand obviously it's a people in the people's industry, but people, as you know, years go by, the whole world is trying to make people more efficient using some kind of technology.

Yes.

What have you seen in the last one or two years or what are the things that you have implemented that you send? You know, this part of technology has shown results or this part of digital marketing has shown results.

See very honestly what has happened is we have seen the world in the hospitality change from faxes to emails to now, you know, apps and mobiles becoming the smart way of reaching out to the various people working in the industry, whether from the perspective of booking requests or any other thing which a guest is looking at. And the world has become or shrunk so small that the information flow is very, very fast.

Right.

The old medium is not at all being utilized, become redundant. As of today, I can say people don't even hear of fax numbers today. People don't look it up. They are either looking at the hotel on website, on their mobile platform or they are even looking forward to an app. They're looking at the fast and speed of booking. They are looking forward to reviews online to understand about the properties. So there has been several advantages which has come in for by the technology. You know, for me in the Hotel Khyber, what I have done is of course get the channel manager in because it is crucial for as far as revenue management goes to get our inventories open online, change the rates immediately at any given point of time. You know, it's not restricted to just 9 to 6 of reservation timings nowadays. It is not that this is the time you will be only working and rest of the time you're off. It's a very dynamic pricing today and you have to be on top of it.

So how do you take care of your pricing in terms of your pricing strategy? Do you do it multiple times a day? How do you look at your pricing?

Phil? We do look at it. I will not do it multiple times because I have a unique advantage of being a luxury hotel in Gulmag and has been able to set up our own branding and we are a well recognized brand today. So I don't necessarily have to do it because I really don't have a comp set in Gulmarg and I look comset world in terms of India as complete this. But yes, in terms of long weekends which we look at in terms of occupancies, when we cross a certain threshold occupancies which we are looking at, we definitely do change our prices accordingly.

Right.

So do you look at changing trends in the international ecosystem? So one is planning the whole 52 weeks. We know what's going to happen in January, February, March because we've had history of the hotel that is showing us what kind of guests come in. But there are cyclical things that happen. Like for example, charters from Egypt have stopped. Charters have just announced that they stopped coming to Goa. They want to go back to Egypt. So when these kind of news things come in, how do you, how nimble should a hotel be to make, you know, to make changes on what kind of decisions would you take if you had this kind of news coming in?

So you have to always keep your eyes open to the market which is moving. You know, for example, if you give the example of Goa and the Russian charters have stopped. But you will see that Goa in terms of ARR and occupancies has only grown with domestic tourism events and mice. So it has become around the year destination from what it used to be 10, 15 years back. Today it's a very hot destination. And it's not only dependent on Russians now to push this economy or tourism through. If you have seen in past two, three years, this event of I think Russians stop coming was in 2009, 10 it started and finally there is a news that they will stop coming altogether in terms of charter services stopped and going to Egypt or nearby destinations. But Groha is thriving, right?

I'd like to know for my audiences, in a situation where you have planned everything and you suddenly get news that 20 to 30% of your business that was supposed to come is not coming, how do you adjust your pricing?

Then you know a market can be unpredictable. So there are things which then you have to look what is under your control. Because finding new markets will take time. It require marketing strategies, it will require sales to kick in. So what you then you do is you look into the operational aspects of what you are doing and try to see how can you improve the bottom line if your top lines are getting hit. So whether it is cost controls which do not impact the guest services and their experience in any way you look at internally. Where are the expenses which can be curtailed without affecting the quality?

You know, recently I was at HSMAI conference in Dubai and one of the, one very senior hotelier said that we have outsourced our housekeeping. So if we have 40% occupancy, then we're paying per, per room, cleaning per room. So you know, that way we don't have fixed costs for housekeeping and all of that. So do you think those kind of things can be done in India as.

Well, depending upon the market you are in? All right. If the outsourced manpower, which is well trained and available. Sure. Even to the fact that some hotels who have outsourced engineering, not only housekeeping, you know, so it depends completely in the market you are and the availability of such outsourced manpower, visa vis your own fixed costs because that gives you an option of reducing and increasing manpower as and when your occupancies pick up or go down. It's a very viable option. But it depends, like for me it might not be a viable option sitting in a remote location.

Understood. So tell me, you know, so because you have such a beautiful property, you have snow all around and you know, you're, you know, you, if I can say that, you know, you're, you're a celebrity GM as well, you know, you're always disciplined, people know about you. How do you leverage social media for your hotel and for yourself?

Well, I am able to, you know, Kashmir being disturbed in terms of political scenario, it's little bit more important for me to reach out to the audience or my guests directly and try to ensure and tell them that there are some disturbances, but not necessarily throughout Kashmir, you know, so I'm trying to use the social media to bring around the safety and security aspect of visiting me here in Gulmag by showcasing the property, they're showcasing the surroundings by telling about Gulmag every now and then, giving write ups. You know, there are some beautiful writers which have recently come up. Like USA Guy came here for family skiing and he wrote a beautiful article. Sharing that article on Twitter, retweeting it on Instagram, Facebook, you know, those are the crucial part which we love to show the guest and tell us about the property as well as the, you know, Kashmir and Gulma.

Right.

So tell me, you know, when it comes to digital and technology and all of that, you, I've seen that you've always been trying to be, you know, ahead of the curve, but when it comes to youngsters who are coming into the industry, you know, how difficult is it to find talent in your front office revenue and all of these people for them to say, you know what, you should also be digital marketing ready. Everybody should have that digital mindset because the world is like that. Is it easy to find those kind of people? Are mindsets changing?

Mindsets are definitely changing. But as of date, it is very difficult to find the right kind of people. See everybody today. I think the kids, today's millennial kids are really on the digital platform. Even at the school timings, I would say all right, and they are very well harnessing the effect of this now. But the people in professional level, we still have a lot of way to go in terms of getting to that level.

Right.

That makes me feel happy because we're doing a lot of personal training for the hospitality industry to get them digital marketing ready. So I see a lot of that, you know, very well trained digital revenue managers, front office managers, even GMs in different parts of the world when we speak to them over a two day program and we tell them how they should personally brand themselves. Because my take is, you know, there is a time is coming when people are going to hire people based on their social media clout. All things being equal, how much social media clout are you bringing to the organization? You have 30,000 followers, people will follow you. Then they'll get to know more about my hotel. So maybe I'll give you a job versus the other guy. So I think the world is changing personal branding. Hoteliers also need to brand themselves on LinkedIn everywhere properly. Not only to get hired better, but also to serve their organization better in this new and changing world.

That is well put by you, Abhijit. That is true.

Okay, so you know, we have about four minutes left. So I'm going to, you know, I'm going to come to two very crucial questions that I've been wanting to ask. So you know, when, when, how do you use, how much do you use digital marketing, revenue management, pricing tools and all of that to plan ahead and how much do you use to, you know, how much do you use it to plan for every day?

See, we are using these tools more to do on not long term, but on a short term planning. All right, because we look at our, what the business scenario has changed from past two years. If I was to look at it, my bookings are alarminate, you know, they are not well planned in two months or three months. You know, it's same thing which Used to happen earlier on that people used to book six months in advance. But today people book 10 days prior, 15 days prior. The scenario has changed. So it makes and gives me an impetus only to plan for those 10, 15 days of coming, looking at my occupancies and use the tools which are available at my hand to see how can I maximize my revenue within this short period of time. As such, for my hotel, I plan my rates only for three months. Unlike hotels in Rajasthan or other part where do a six month season period and off month, six months to me, every three months my rate undergo a change.

Right.

Do you think that today's technology tools, revenue management, pricing parity tools, all of that can be set into auto mode, forgotten about or you still manual intervention is needed.

You can do an auto mode, but I think, you know, with the depends upon the inventory in hand with you simply I'm a luxury boutique hotel, you know, I might not have the leverage of always opening and keeping the inventory. I require to manage my inventory to ensure that I am able to get a good balance of all channels of business which are coming to me. Right. So I will not be only using one aspect of the marketing. So I will still have a manual intervention. It depends upon if you're a bigger hotel, maybe you can put it on an auto mode because you have an inventory to sell and there will be very less time and you'll feel that you have outsold your inventory. Just you're on one platform. It completely depends upon the size of the property.

Okay. And what. And you think there are tools and technology that is helping you to talk to guests while they're staying with you?

Well, honestly no, I don't. I haven't used that technology. I only have a wire system. But we are not having a direct. Maybe we are looking at making our hotel a smart hotel in coming two years time, wherein we might use the technology available like Alexa for controlling speaking to guests through digital media, having them utilize our services by voice commands. We are in process of actually doing some sampling for it. We are running a program for it and getting feedback so that in coming two years time we definitely will be going ahead with this kind of smart hotels wherein we have an opportunity to interact with the guest digitally.

Right, Excellent. Now, you know, this brings us to our last question. Which are the what are the top three things that you would like to tell our audience hoteliers who are watching this? And most of the time it's people who are aspiring to be hoteliers like yourselves and manage such iconic brands like the ones that you're handling. What are your three tips for budding hoteliers? It could be technology, it could be leadership, it could be entrepreneur. Anything that you entrepreneurial mindset. What are the three things you'd like to say to the audience before we wind up?

See, the biggest challenge which we face as hoteliers is finding the right human resource. All right, the biggest challenge is finding the right people. And if you have found them, then comes retaining them. The attrition level in our industry is high and young people who are joining us nowadays are very impatient and they find and they jump. Plus the amount of discipline and hard work which we have put in, I find that they get very soon upset if you have scolded them or any such thing. Keeping them motivated, keeping them engaged and retaining them if they're a good resource, that is the biggest challenge loyalists find. Second, of course, within the industry, within the hotels, you will find that training is even the last seat. It is not on the top priority for the people who are in operations because if they're doing good occupancies, focus is completely on offering services, not on educating, training and motivating the team. That is completely on the backside. While I think it should be on the false side, trained staff is able to give better services. And third and foremost is employee engagement. I think as the team leaders, as general managers, we need to participate more in employee engagement activities so that we are able to get the feedback firsthand and resolve any issues which might be coming in the way and get a team which is motivated if they are happy. I am sure you will have a delighted guest.

Excellent. Excellent, Vineet, it was lovely. It's been half an hour but it flew away because you told us great tips on how to conduct the best morning meeting, how to keep yourself disciplined, how to work in on iconic brand which is what was single property in the north of India, how you use technology, how you inspire youngsters. I'm sure you know this, this show is going to reach out to a lot of hoteliers across the world and I'm sure that a lot of people are going to come in with a lot of great learning and they would come back to you with their comments and suggestions and shares. Thank you Vineet very much for taking time out on this beautiful Republic day and making sure that we as an industry get into more. These kind of shows are basically to educate and inform the industry on what's happening. Sometimes there are some principles others are following, they get revalidated and sometimes there's a lot of learning that happens. I feel in our hospitality industry, the learning has to increase and therefore, this is one attempt from our side to make sure that we bring everybody together and do these kind of shows. Eventually, we're also going to do shows whether on my Zoom link, they're going to be seven, eight hoteliers together. I'm not trying to do a news wire kind of a show, but I'm trying to get many people of different opinions with the same aim on my show. So we look forward to having you back on the show again. Once again, thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. It was great speaking to you. Happy Republic Day as well.

Yeah, take care. See you soon.