As for everything else these days, a business’s ability to understand their consumers’ intent and efficiently positioning themselves along the way can make or break the bank. With the paradigm shift that the ever-evolving hospitality industry undergo – the five key factors that we reckon will determine the hotel industry in 2020 are: Online Space Google is eyeing on the travel and hospitality industry, tapping into its gigantic trove of usage data to deliver highly relevant information to users across all various stages of their trip planning. Although it recently shut down its Google Trips app, many of its features will live on in Google Search and Google Maps. As regular OTAs continue to challenge the hotel industry, Expedia has been expanding its global presence and…

A video posted by an actor appalled on being charged INR 442.50 for couple of bananas at a five star hotel got viral recently. With the post a controversial debate raged on various point of views just not the amount charged but was it ethical, logical, legal and more. While it got the internet buzzing with memes and other hotels also taking a satire nip of the topic, it triggers a lot of questions for hoteliers, hotel operators and the blog highlights some of them. Training and auditing of the standard procedures in hotels is of critical importance with contingencies accounted for. In this case due to an irregular demand of 2 bananas either the team had a choice to not charge for them at…

Ever since I was a child while growing up in Rajasthan, water was an important commodity that’s not wasted and is surely LIMITED. I remember having water piped to our houses once ever 3rd day for few hours with irregularities of course. One of the task in the morning irrespective of the weather was to fill all the buckets, utensils with water for drinking, cooking, daily chores and for all that water is required in homes. In summers at times due to the reduced or no supply of water – tankers were ordered for and then the water tanks were filled along with all the utensils and buckets to go off few more days. Thus actually water at that point became from a basic need…

The hospitality industry worldwide is shifting constantly but with the additional rationales applicable in the subcontinent, the Indian travel and hospitality industry is evolving faster to thrive itself. With news of curtains been drawn over some of the offline travel agencies, rise of AirBnB and Oyo – it’s clear indication that one mode isn’t killing the other but the modus operandi needs to be transformed rather quickly to keep one above the curve. Traditionally offline travel agents were the only choice to book travel. One would simply call them or meet in the office, told them where you wanted to go, and it was DONE as the agents did all the annoying work of talking to airlines, hotels, transportation et al. Then came OTAs (online…

Harrell (1994) proposed that the entrepreneur’s careers have four transition stages in which the entrepreneurs develop and grow into successful business persons (Morrison et al, 2005). The stages are namely Entrepreneurial genius, Benevolent dictator, Disassociated director and lastly a Visionary leader. These stages assist to analyse business behaviour in different periods of the entrepreneurial cycle. Hospitality entrepreneur follow a similar trend as well but in India at times the 2nd and 3rd stages are not as evident due to various rationales. The excitement, energy and dedication determine a business person to become one of the entrepreneurial geniuses in the business career. Development of business portfolio by buying, fighting and getting personally involved in all aspects of his business empire with total control is a significant…

There are various components to a business like a cog in the wheel which makes the organisation thrive. From a basic thought to experiencing unique products to service delivery with memories created, is the customer lifecycle. However, for a business from behind the scenes – the same steps are more strategic in nature. It all starts with the Business ethics - ‘ensuring acceptable standards of behaviour throughout all the operations of a business’, ‘complying with company, legal, professional and regulatory standards, and abiding by principles like fairness, honesty, respect and truth’ (icfaipress.org).Social responsibility proposes that a private corporation has responsibilities to society that extend beyond making a profit’ (Wheelen, T and Hunger). The three different levels of social responsibility that have been identified are the…