Harish C Dhingra

SERVQUAL +
a Column By Harish C Dhingra

Nurture Indigenous Talent  

The hospitality industry has witnessed a sharp increase in both occupancy levels and rates
(ARR) in the first half of this year. After the natural and manmade calamities of the past
several months - from SARS to the Iraq war - it seems like the industry, particularly the
five-star segment is coming out of the woods.

The Taj group wants to add more rooms at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai, and expansions in the
cities like Bangalore and the suburbs of Delhi are but inevitable. In the off-season period from April
to September, occupancy stood at an average 65 per cent to 68 per cent in five-star hotels - a
favourable sign for the year ahead.

However, has the industry’s view become so myopic that it cannot evaluate itself beyond taking stock of occupancy levels? Or it is also grading itself on performance parameters like quality of management and operations?

Battle Of talent - Indian Vs International

A prime area that affects performance is the management of the hotel: the team behind day-to-day operations. Increasingly, this area is in a transition phase - luxury hotels with international and national branding are ‘importing’ foreign managers. This undoubtedly mars the chances of Indians
who are equally qualified and competent for the same. It is now time for introspection. Have we succumbed to international charm or are we inept at developing leaders? Is the industry as committed to creating new leaders as they are about launching new products?

The recent influx of foreign managers is absurd; especially when one thinks back to the global standards of operation the Indian hospitality industry has adhered to since the very beginning. Granted, the industry did attempt bringing in international expertise in the past as well. However, these attempts proved futile, as it was evident that these managers lacked awareness about the product, guest, staff, as they grappled with a culture alien to them.

There is much more to leadership than the vision and charisma of the manager. He is also
responsible for developing leadership at the lower levels. There is now a looming vacuum of
Indian talent at the top management levels. Can we recover from this major disaster now?
Companies like the Oberoi and Taj group, mostly hiring foreign managers, should take up the
responsibility for this vacuum. Although ITC has had a strategic alliance with Sheraton,
they have groomed and developed Indian managers.

The industry seems to have forgotten the trends followed in the 70s and 80s when several
talented management and culinary personnel were sent to premier institutes like the Cornell
Institute of Hotel Management, and Culinary Institute of America (CIA). This served to enhance the career of Indian hoteliers who further developed the standards of the hotel industry. Companies those days certainly didn’t take the easy route of hiring foreign managers.

Hotel stalwarts should focus on developing and retaining Indian talent, instead of just dipping their hands from time to time into an international pool. Spending about 20-30 times more on salaries and perks for their international employees, hotels have curbed resources for developing leadership. Has it resulted with more satisfied customers? Hotels should ask themselves if they have suddenly become insecure that they find the need for latching on to international expertise.

Even though most of the large chains have their own hotel management institutes why do they search for leaders elsewhere? If this trend continues, we will become conditioned to expecting only international managers at the helm of affairs in hotels. This is already a norm in the Middle-East where more than 90 per cent of hotel general managers are foreigners. This started in the 1970s and now incorporating local citizens as managers is proving to be unacceptable in the Middle-East.

Is India headed in the similar direction? We have prided ourselves on maintaining international standards and warm service in the hospitality industry. In fact, the recent SKAL World Congress held in Chennai is testimony to the fact that our hotels are on par, or even better, than several of the acclaimed hotels abroad. It is time we asked ourselves why we are resorting to picking talent from abroad, instead of focusing on our indigenous talent pool.

Sizzling competition

For five-star hotels the nightmare scenario is where the mushrooming four-star hotels are eating into their customer base. Today, chains like Fortune Park, GRT Hotels, Trident etc offer similar facilities as five-stars and offer excellent accommodation 30 per cent to 40 per cent cheaper. In fact, the dearth of accommodation in this segment was partially the cause of the success of the five-star hotels in the past. Many MNCs and Indian corporates are now opting for four-star accommodation for the middle to senior management as they jump on to the ‘value for money’ bandwagon.

Another area where the five-star hotels have lost out is with regard to the food and beverage department. The segment now is threatened by the stiff competition from the deluge of high quality stand-alone restaurants, particularly in the cities where one can have a drink along with food, which is again a recent trend.

Recently the Oberois have tied up with the Hilton and if rumours are to be believed, there are some more chains in the offing. Have our hotels become unmarketable in a jiffy?

With the changing trends within the industry, it is time for five-star hotels to take stock of the situation and reposition themselves. How will they package themselves as the threat from ‘value for money’ accommodation becomes more potent? Will the preference for international over Indian prevail in the coming years? Or will it be checked and our own talent nurtured?

(The author is founder of Servqual Plus, customer service consultancy. He can be contacted at
hcd@servqualplus.com)