ThinkPad 2 How is the hospitality industry planning for recovery?

The pandemic has severely hit the global economy, affecting millions of businesses, jobs and lives. Indian economy also suffered big time through a series of lockdowns and its impact on business & trade. One of the worst hit sectors is India’s hospitality industry. The good news, however, is that the industry is on its path to recovery, albeit slowly but surely. For  ThinkPad Seesion 2, we explored how India’s hospitality industry is planning for its recovery. It was moderated by Rahul Singh, Founder & CEO, Beer Café. Several industry experts like Raju Vaziraney, Business Development Head and Advisor, Amrut Distilleries; Rajiv Kapoor, General Manager, Fairmont Jaipur; Sandeep Singh, Directorof Operations, Hyatt Regency Pune and Minakshi Singh, Co-founder, Cocktails & Dreams, Speakeasy and Sidecar - shared important insights on this complex but pressing issue along with interesting instances of how their own operations are doing.

Rahul Singh, Founder & CEO, Beer Café, set the tone of the discussion as moderator by saying that India’s hospitality industry was exploring the road from crisis to recovery and there already had been lots of recovery from tier-II cities. He however lamented the highly unorganised and unregulated character, rigmarole of rules and regulations, licensing nightmares and changing laws of excise from state to state which plagues India’s hospitality industry.

“We do not have a dedicated ministry for the hospitality and alco-beverages industry which compounds our problem, as we have to run from one department to another to set up a restaurant,” he observed.

Digitally Innovative

Minakshi Singh, the Co-founder, Cocktails & Dreams, Speakeasy, and Sidecar, stated that in May of this year they resumed their business with home deliveries and pre-mixes, which by her own admission “was barely able to meet the electricity bills.” However, in September, she was very much enthused when she could open her outlets. “It was great to serve drinks again,” she recollected.

“Though we have restriction to have guests up to 50 percent of our customer capacity, but even that 50 percent is very difficult to meet, especially on weekdays,” she narrated. In Fridays and Saturdays, her outlets could achieve 50 percent customer capacity. “On weekdays on an average, we are achieving only 30 percent of customer capacity,” she maintained.

Minakshi has practiced innovation and ideation as one important route to survive through this crisis. She joked that during the last 2-5 months she did more power point presentations to the liquor companies than she did in her entire career. “We did pitches after pitches projecting what kind of marketing promotions and campaign we can do,” she explained. Bringing musicians online and doing cocktail workshops were some of the innovative initiatives done by her enterprise. “During this lean period we have created a YouTube channel which is monetising, which we never thought it would,” Minakshi disclosed. Of course, she did a number of courses during these last months.

However, she acknowledges that people in India are now drinking better these days and this healthy trend has not been adversely affected by the pandemic too. “Despite the pandemic, I think the future of alcobeverages industry is bright,” she opined.

We Shall Overcome

Razu Vaziraney, Development Head and Advisor, Amrut Distilleries, rightly believes that alcohol is a major contributor to the hospitality industry. “It is an evergreen industry, as people drink in both good and bad times,” he asserted.

He informed that during this Covid affected phase, Amrut Distilleries has given lots of focus on Master Classes, appreciation programmes and has come up with Amrut Bar Academy to increase appreciation of alcoholic beverages in the industry and society. “Through the Bar Academy we have trained hotel and club staff who were sitting idle,” he informed. Gauging the trend, he observed that “A great many Indian consumers are graduating from blended whiskies to single malts, and we need to educate the consumers on how to better enjoy the single malts.”

Another thing Raju is focusing on is banqueting. He believes this endeavour of Amrut Distilleries will yield rich dividends once things normalise after the arrival of vaccine. “We are and would be partnering with banqueting outlets where we would give them bartending support, and support in the form of accessories and bar collaterals,” he disclosed.

“And being a conservative but innovative brand, we at Amrut are earnest to increase our portfolio and offer different malts at different price spectrums,” he pointed out with confidence. In the recent past, Amrut Distilleries has also come up with Fusion X.

The seasoned alcoholic beverages industry professional is optimistic that with vaccine in sight the hospitality industry would be able to tide over this crisis. But in the same breath he emphasised that hospitality and alco-beverages industry should work in unison to get concessions and relief from the regulatory authorities by making them see the reason. “They must be made to realise that if we can’t survive, you too would be in trouble,” he asserted.

However, he maintained that though we may recover from this Covid crisis, which he refers to as Mother of all crises, in one or two years, “but the fear that has seeped into the minds of people would continue to affect them for long, long time.”

Raju also pointed out that oversupply of inventory was a big problem in hospitality and alco-beverages industry. “We must take this crisis as an opportunity to remove our excess fat, in a collaborative manner,” he observed.

Other panelists talk in detail about how they are planning to recover from the pandemic. Read about it in the January issue of Spiritz Magazine. Subscribe now.