Hospitality and tourism have been among the worst hit sectors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought leisure and non-urgent travel to a grinding halt. Despite economies opening up across the globe slowly, people are still hesitant to go on holidays. As a result, hotels have been deserted for months now with no bookings, and hence, no revenue.
However, with the lockdown lifting in various parts of the country, weddings have come as a ray of hope for hotels. Hotels are seeing an increase in enquiries and bookings for weddings, even though they’re being done at a smaller scale due to government regulations.
Le Meridien in Kerala, for example, has already gotten about 15 bookings for weddings over the next few weeks at the hotel. Tamarind Tree, a popular wedding venue in Bengaluru too, says that while they saw about 40 enquiries a week before the nationwide lockdown, demand is slowly returning with them receiving at least 20 calls a week now.
Zubin Songadwala, Area Manager- ITC Hotels in the South says that guests are opting for local destinations with small, intimate gatherings, for which the hotel has received several queries. The hotel is also seeing traction for November and December weddings. Most of these are weddings that were originally scheduled for April-June but postponed due to the pandemic.
And given that weddings are the main source of business for these hotels right now, they are also flexible with pricing, with some even offering discounts. Le Meridien says that they have reduced their buffet rates given the pandemic situation. While it charged Rs 1,350 plus taxes per person (or plate), it is now charging Rs 1,100 plus taxes.
ITC’s Zubin says that while the hotel kept charges unchanged during peak wedding season, they are being flexible at the moment with prices. However, thanks to smaller crowds, hotels say they’re able to offer customised packages to guests that are being well-received.
“We believe in providing customized experiences while keeping the charges within the customer's budget. We have a host of offerings that can be adequately adapted to suit the budget of the guest and meet his requirements,” a Hilton spokesperson said, referring to Conrad Bengaluru.
Most of the large five-star hotels too, have put several safety programs in place to attract wedding bookings, promising high standards.
ITC, for example, launched its ‘WeAssure’ initiative, promising highest standards of sanitation, hygiene, safety, and infection control practices. ITC Hotels has also partnered with DNV GL Business Assurance, one of the world’s leading certification bodies, to ensure stringent clinical levels of hygiene and safety.
Hilton has launched ‘Hilton Event Ready with CleanStay’, which it says is designed to create events that are safe. “The EventReady program focuses on the deep cleaning of 10 high touchpoints with industry defining disinfectant chemicals. Once the deep cleaning process is complete, the team applies a physical seal (Hilton CleanStay Event Seal) to assure the host of heightened hygiene standards,” a company spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Novotel Hyderabad Airport is implementing its parent company Accor's global safety label ‘ALLSAFE’, along with measures laid down by the government.
This includes the standard safety measures such as temperature checks, regular sanitation and disinfection, ensuring the staff is wearing face masks, shields and gloves.
Most of these hotels have also discontinued buffet services to minimise contact and ensure physical distancing.
Rubin Cherian, General Manager at Novotel Hyderabad Airport says that its staff is serving the buffet and every piece of cutlery and crockery is thoroughly cleaned, and later UV treated to avoid contamination of any sort, while hotels like Kochi’s Le Meridien are mostly using disposable cutlery. ITC hotels is providing contactless snack and welcome drink stations in vantage points in the hall.
“From the month of June, we are noticing a large proportion of guests enquiring for events with the government guideline of 50 guests. While we have had some guests come to us with a larger number of guests, we have managed to turn these requests down. But the majority of the queries have been ranging from 40-50 guests,” Rubin adds.
And while all these hotels are restricting the guest count to 50 as per government guidelines, some hotels are offering ways to split the crowd into different halls, or offer time-slots to guests to ensure there are not more than 50 guests in a hall at any given point.
Another emerging trend that hotels are now seeing are bookings for staycations.
ITC, Novotel, Conrad, and other hotels have said that since August, they have been seeing enquiries and bookings for honeymoon packages and staycations. And hotels are offering discounts and packages to attract customers to their properties.