Here is how Band, Bajaa, Baraat are assisting Covid-strike motels get better

By Vishakha Talreja, 

It has been a bleak 12 months for hotels, but the massive extra fat Indian wedding ceremony sector has emerged as a knight in shining armor aiding resorts garner revenues and occupancies in the past quarter of 2020. In accordance to a latest JLL report, weddings aided revive the resort sector, along with ‘revenge travel’ and desire for F&B, in the Oct to December period of time. Resorts have develop into the most popular venues as the variety of friends come to be restricted, elbowing out farmhouse and international desired destination weddings. The new pointers favor domestic lodges as there is a cap on the quantity of guests permitted. For instance in Delhi and Mumbai up to 50 company are permitted to attend a marriage, while in Haryana a 200-men and women gathering is permitted for indoor situations. “The capping of company has created it probable for our lodges to host weddings pan India with 50 to 100 persons. With queries pouring in, the marriage field has aided our accommodations immensely,” says Abinash Manghani, CEO, WelcomHeritage Resorts.

Oct past calendar year is when the resorts started off having queries for weddings and they were being brief to adapt to the new normal. Thermal screening for company, theatre seating to ensure social distancing, housekeeping in PPE kits are some of the fundamentals that hotels ensured. The specifics that have helped hotels receive assurance of the wedding ceremony planners are intriguing.

“The mandap established up has been made in these kinds of a way that it presents sufficient social distancing. We have tweaked the style and design features as for every the pandemic protocols preserving the grandeur character of celebrations intact. We are organizing the digital tour of the hotel and for all the guest queries, our banquets workforce is conducting on the web meetings. We are also featuring dwell kitchen entry to the visitors,” describes Kush Kapoor, CEO, Roseate Inns & Resorts.

Accor Hotel’s well-known brand name Novotel is leveraging know-how to rope in visitors nearly as properly. “We are fuelling our means with electronic innovations and entering into this new segment of virtual weddings to make our guest’s working day specific in the existing instances. Friends get to choose a host hotel in any metropolis as the wedding day venue and then web telecast of the marriage can be accessed by family members and buddies in distinct cities,” clarifies Puneet Dhawan, Senior VP Operations, Accor India and South Asia. Novotel has 20 attributes in India. The guests attending the virtual wedding ceremony based out of metropolitan areas with a Novotel home will have the identical food sent at their property which is served at the host hotel.

Goa has emerged as not only a well-known domestic vacation spot but also a wedding hotspot as beach front location weddings that witnessed airplane-loads of Indians hopping to the islands of Thailand are now settling for Goa as worldwide journey stays closed. Double Tree By Hilton, Panaji not too long ago arranged a marriage ceremony fair and was quite overwhelmed by the response it bought irrespective of the pandemic. “It was wonderful to see so quite a few future partners and marriage ceremony planners show up at the party. We are quickly scheduling the 2nd edition,” said Dacia Godinho, Business Director, DoubleTree by Hilton Goa-Panaji.

The JLL report suggests that wedding day ceremonies will engage in an even far more pivotal position in 2021 to enable resorts garner revenues.

“All weddings that have been cancelled in 2020 have now shifted to 2021 and we are expecting an enhance of 40% in wedding day bookings,” suggests Sarbendra Sarkar, Founder & Running Director, Cygnett Lodges & Resorts. “Even write-up-COVID it will be about retaining it little, sustainable and special,” he adds.

(The author is a Delhi-primarily based travel, meals and lifestyle writer. Views expressed are private.)