India's top biz hotel is a surprise

Q&A: Swarup Datta, GM, The Park, Navi Mumbai

Wallpaper and Fortune have rated The Park, Navi Mumbai, one of the 50 best business hotels in the world. It’s one of the only two hotels from India thus selected, finds Priyanka Joshi.

What does the award mean to you?
We need to keep up with the expectations of guests. We do expect to see more demanding consumers who expect cutting edge technology and richer content from hotels like ours.

We have already started to actively engage our customers through social computing which, I reason, is second nature for the present broadband generation. Our guests regularly blog or write their experiences on travel websites and we believe that our next set of guests are more likely to walk through our doors after reading such user-experience content. Hence the effort is to better the experience and not sweat too much on contemplating how to bring guests to Navi Mumbai.

Do travellers realise they are in an award-winning hotel?
To succeed, I think, we need to fulfil the experience expected by customers, not just think of them as heads in a bed. Our business guests, typically, house themselves for an average 15 days and we have to serve them menus that are both international and varied. Our staff is trained to greet and serve patrons according to their recorded preferences. We clocked a good beginning since February last year when we opened. Our business grew by 20 per cent and we have seen 25 per cent of repeat clients.

How are you serving a better experience to a corporate traveller who does not care about frills?
Corporate travellers are an ideal group for mobile-based services and we are working towards delivering the best Wi-Fi speeds at no extra cost. Just as coffee makers are expected in any room, high-speed Internet access with facilities like video conferencing are now sought after by our guests. The business traveller is discerning and wants everything gratis. We recognise the need for capital expenditure on newer technology.

You are managing a hotel in Navi Mumbai. Is it worth all the pain?
When one is handling a Rs 32 crore property, just 40 minutes drive from the domestic airport, it is far more promising than a hotel in the heart of Mumbai. Our proximity to Thane-Belapur industrial belt provides easy access to Navi Mumbai business districts. With the Reliance SEZ shaping up, we expect to register 60-70 per cent occupancy rates. It is as challenging as it can get.