Oberoi Mumbai gets more luxe

The biggest splash of colour in the 14-level atrium lobby that gives you an expansive view of the Arabian Sea is the cherry-red grand piano playing the notes of ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina’.

The occasion: A media preview organized by the Oberoi in Mumbai as the hotel reopens this Saturday —17 months after parts of it was ravaged by terrorists. From what one saw, the Oberoi, after its rebirth, will make the hotel more opulent and luxurious than it already was, after the over Rs 180 crore renovation exercise.

To begin with, the lobby, which bore the brunt of the attack, has been rebuilt with milky-white marble from the Greek island of Thassos.

The hotel will now have 50 more suites, which will take the count to 70. In comparison, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai, owned by the Tatas has 46 suites. The number of rooms has been reduced from the earlier 327 o 287. “We consider space to be one of the elements of luxury,” says Liam Lambert, President, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.

Lambert is obviously walking the talk as the two presidential suites, Golconda and Kohinoor, offer around 2,050 sq. ft of elegant interiors, coupled with expansive views of the Arabian Sea.

The price for a night’s stay ranges from Rs 25,000 for the smallest room (490 sq ft) to about Rs 300,000 for the top suites. Rooms will now have “butler” buttons, which will summon a hotel employee within three minutes.

“We have reconstructed the hotel for tomorrow, not for today. In five years, tourism in India is expected to increase substantially. Eight per cent of our customers are leisure travellers and we plan to increase that amount to 20 per cent in the next two years,” Lambert says.

The restaurants have not only got a makeover, but new identities as well. So the hotel café, Tiffin, where many people were shot as they were having dinner on the first day of the attacks, has been renamed ‘Fenix”. The restaurant is being directed by Vineet Bhatia, the first chef ever to get a Michelin star for Indian food in 2001.

Kandahar, a restaurant serving North West frontier cuisine and a favourite among Mumbai’s elite, is now “Ziya”. The hotel is also opening a new bar called Eau. The 24-hour Oberoi-operated spa will include Balinese massages and, Hungarian body wraps.

And of course improved security. The hotel will have 10 times more surveillance cameras than before the attack (150 compared to 15). Security personnel have also increased five fold with 50 now on duty at any given time. Visitors who drive up are greeted by a big steel gate where their cars are searched. The large windows in the lobby that overlook south Mumbai’s picturesque, crescent-shaped bay are now made from reinforced, shatterproof glass.

“Every single room had been destroyed either by smoke, fire or water. The glass roof and balconies also had to be re-done as they had been destroyed,” Lambert says. The hotel has as of now received about Rs 62 crore from its insurance company, New India Assurance. However, the total financial damage is still being assessed.

The Mumbai Oberoi accounted for about one-fifth of the revenue of the chain before the attacks.