October 21, 2024 • 30 mins
Arjun Balji, President of Royal Orchid Hotels, shares insights on leveraging technology to drive growth and efficiency in a competitive market.
Key Points:
- Tech Stack Integration: Royal Orchid uses a combination of tools to create a cost-effective, seamless tech ecosystem.
- Cloud Migration: Initiated four years ago, the shift to cloud-based PMS has enabled real-time monitoring and daily P&L accounts for each hotel.
- Guest Experience: Implementing a web app for concierge services and exploring AI voice tech to cater to India's diverse linguistic landscape.
- Rewards Program: Offers 2-4% cashback, instant rewards, and integrates with the booking engine for personalized guest experiences.
- Future Goals: Expanding the Regenta Zed franchise model with a "hotel in a box" approach, aiming for 200 hotels in two years.
What’s next: Royal Orchid is piloting virtual tools for banqueting and mobile check-in solutions to enhance operational efficiency and guest satisfaction.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't think we're ever gonna get to that level of
seamlessness where you can walkthrough the front doors and
check-in through your mobilephone and use your mobile phone
in order to open a room doorwithout meeting a single human
being along the way, I don'tthink we'll ever get there.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
On this episode, we speak with Arjun Bal the
president of Royal OrchidHotels. This India based company
operates over 100 propertiesincluding over 250 food and
beverage outlets. Arjun walks usthrough his tech stack which is
composed of many innovativestartups that work together to
form one holistic techecosystem. And this program has
(00:48):
contributed to a boost in directbookings in the few months since
implementation. I like to startthe conversation by learning a
bit about your background andyour current role.
Would you please tell me whatyou're doing now and what your
role consists of, what yourresponsibilities are, and a
little bit about your company aswell?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Sure. My name is Arjun Balaji. I'm the president
of Royal Oak Kid Hotels. RoyalOak Kid is a full stack hotel
company. We have a little over a100 actually, a 108 operating
hotels in India.
We've got a couple of hotelsoperating in Nepal and one in
Sri Lanka. We are an Indiancompany. We started with the
idea of bringing hospitalityacross the board. We are now in
(01:32):
the middle of reimagining ourbusiness just because we have
scale per se. So in reimaginingour business, you know, we are
creating new hotel brands.
So we have a slew of 5 hotelbrands that we're rolling out.
It's fast growing. We havehotels that we own, we lease, we
manage, and we franchise. We runall the f and b ourselves, so
(01:53):
that'll be about 250 odd f and boutlets plus banquets plus you
know, so it's a large operation.And in order to enable this, we
started our journey to move tothe cloud from a PMS perspective
about 4 years ago.
And, obviously, I found it, youknow, interesting and
challenging. And, yeah, we're onthat journey now, and we're
(02:16):
integrating with multipletechnologies to enable us to do
things in a more seamlessmanner. So my job today in the
company is, about reimaginingthe brands that we have, setting
each brand on a path to growth,setting process and systems to
enable those brands, and thatone of those facets is to use
(02:38):
technology in an effectivemanner so that we can, you know,
monitor the growth of thesebrands. Our hotel owners are
happy with how they'reperforming, and we can push more
guest services through thosetechnologies to make the lives
of our guests easier.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And you mentioned there are a couple of brands
within the Royal Orchidportfolio. How many brands are
you working with?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So they're all our own brands. Royal Orchid Hotels
has their own brands. We've gotRoyal Orchid, which is an
upscale brand that we'vecurrently got, across 15
locations, and the rest fallunder a brand called Regenta.
And Regenta has a number ofsilos under it. So it's got
Regenta Inn, which is going tobe rebranded now.
Then we got Regenta Place, whichis the quirky fun local hotel.
(03:25):
And then, you know, you've gotLegenda Centrals, which are your
bog standard, what you see iswhat you get kind of 4 style
hotel offering.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And are the properties typically in urban
areas? Who's your typical guest?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It's even key across the board with business and
leisure. I think what's happenedin India over the last couple of
years is people are even willingto go and check out, you know,
thanks to COVID, the exploreIndia offering has grown
considerably. So, you know,we've basically doubled our
portfolio in the last 3 years.It's been an incredible hockey
stick type of growth. And as Isaid, we're currently an Indian
(04:02):
company catering to India.
Right? And it's India, middlemarket, and Apple middle market
who we cater to, and that's ourguest. So it could be the same
corporate customer who comesinto our city hotels, who then
takes his family and friendsover to one of our vacation
spots for the weekend. So kindaworks out to be pretty much the
(04:23):
same kind of customer.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Got it. Very cool. And one thing you mentioned just
briefly is you have doubled yourportfolio size in the last
couple of years. Can you talk tome about how technology has
maybe helped you with thatgrowth or made that growth more
efficient?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, you know, it's not so much the technology that
has made that efficient. Ithink, the fact that there's
opportunity in India, you know,we're a very agile hotel
company. We follow an asset likemodel right now, so it's kind of
a management platform to, youknow, wanna call it that. So
we're very flexible with thehotel owners. However, with each
of our contracts, we're veryclear that I go back to
(05:03):
hospitality first principles.
Right? And we kind of use asimple 2 part question in making
any decision across the board.And the first question is, will
my guest love it? And the secondquestion is, will it make me
money? And if the answer is yesto both those questions, we go
ahead and do it.
And so part of the digitizationof our company stem from those
(05:28):
2. Right? So you've got, youknow, typical hotel tech stack.
Right? Like, we've got the PMS.
You've got basically the channelmanager. You've got revenue
manager. You've got all thesedifferent pieces of software
that come together to make ahotel work. What we found over
our years of, I wanna sayexperimentation, is that there
(05:52):
are either the super largeOracle Mycross type people who
do a phenomenal job at what theydo, but they're frankly
expensive for the smaller hotelsand the Indian hotels that we
operate. Right?
So we had to go and tinkeraround and find a tech stack
that suited us. And that techstack was a culmination of
(06:15):
specific hotel piece or specificpiece of software that actually
are really good at what they do.Right? So we got post folks who
do, you know, their onlineaccounting platform, and they're
phenomenal. So we have hotellogics sitting in the middle of
it, and then, you know, like,listen.
How do I take hotel logics andAPI integrated with pauses,
which is a phenomenal food andbeverage offering, a beverage
(06:36):
management platform, And connectthat to Hostbooks, which is the
accounting platform foreverything else. That then gets
connected to Rategain, which isthe channel manager. Right? And
then it's connected to anotherpiece of revenue management
software. And you got Salesforcesitting somewhere that is
connected to all of it so thatsales and marketing and
(06:57):
development efforts can kind of,you know, go through the
Salesforce channel.
Right? So we've had to pick andchoose all of these, you know,
5, 6 different pieces ofsoftware and make them talk to
each other. And in doing that,we came up with a really cool
tech stack that is nowcompulsory for our Dell owners
(07:17):
to adopt. Right? But at the sametime, the text tag is cost
effective for them to adopt.
Right? And that really was avery interesting little piece
where you could go to a hotelowner. It's a cost per room
basis right, that we don't makeany money out of. Right? So it's
a direct contract between thehotel owner and the tech
(07:38):
companies themselves.
Right? But we'll just ensurethat this is all implemented for
them at a really, really costeffective manner.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Tell me a bit about how these changes come into
play. Like, you have an idea.You suggest it to maybe the
product team at Hotel Logix. Andare they generally supportive of
building it, or is there somenegotiation there?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I could tell you that with Hotel Logix, you know,
they're a startup. They're awell funded startup. They are
agile. Their founders areincredible people, and they
kinda get it. Right?
So exactly the same ethos of mesharing value or knowledge with
them. And where do I get thisidea? I don't get this idea.
Right? It's never me.
It's always a user within ourecosystem, within the hotels,
(08:25):
who comes back and says, listen.If this functionality was there,
it'll just make our life easier.Right? So that demand has come
from the end user, not from me.I I don't know how to even run
that piece of tech, frankly.
Right? So somebody who's the enduser of that tech comes up with
a request. It goes back to us tosay, maybe if it's done in the x
(08:46):
manner, it'll help our endemployee. And then we send that
on to Telogix to say, hey.Listen.
Is this possible? They wouldthen come back with we already
have this tool, and maybe youcould let's get a new training
session done. Or it's a goodidea. Let's develop it or let's
dwell on it and then develop it.You know, 4 to 6 week cycle, we
(09:09):
have an impacts that we wanted.
Right? So it's been acollaborative effort with all of
our vendors, right, to try andget the best solution that our
end user and for software, ourend user is our employee. Right?
It's the last waiter. It's thelast housekeeper.
It's the last front desk agent.Right? So we need to ensure that
(09:29):
everything works.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And you mentioned it was about 4 years ago that you
migrated from a legacy system toHotel Logix. Tell me about how
you chose Hotel Logix. How didthat decision come to pass that
you were ready to change PMSvendors, which I can imagine for
a portfolio your size is nosmall feat?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Well, listen. It's an ongoing process. Just remember
that, you know, we added 50hotels over the last 3 years.
Right? So then there was COVIDbefore that.
We lost a number of hotels.Number of hotels shut down. So
this journey actually startedjust before COVID when we
decided that, listen, we want todigitize. We wanna move to the
cloud, and let's go out and shoparound for a PMS system that
(10:14):
actually suits us. Now the onething that I could tell you is
that one of the key decisions ofchoosing Hotel Logix was that
their founders were in India,and they were backed by name
brand venture partners, likeAccel Ventures that Accel put
money in them.
Right? So there's automaticcredibility with Accel that I
(10:37):
didn't put the stamp of approvalon them. Right? That was a key
consideration. The fact thatthey were accessible to us, this
was an experiment that we werestarting with, and I didn't want
to and we started with just acouple of hotels.
Right? So the experiment waslet's start with a couple of
hotels that we own, that we cancontrol, and then if things
(10:57):
don't work out, we can move backreally quickly to the legacy
systems. So now months on end,we'll be actually 2 systems
running in parallel. Right? Itwas a complete pain for hotel
operations team, but we had todo that.
Right? So there were a number ofvendors who we spoke to, and I
just think there was a meetingof the minds between the
(11:17):
founders at Hotel Logix and us.Right? It really was. It was a
meeting of minds.
It was something that we got oninstantly with the vision that
they were on and the path theywere on and where I kind of saw
my company going through. Right?And it just kind of became a
story where, alright. Well, youknow, let's grow together.
(11:39):
Right?
Rather than you being a vendorper se and me being a client and
me begging you to go forservice. And it just morphed
into a partnership rather than avendor seller type situation.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Is there any new vendor on the market, not for
PMS, but for another type ofsoftware that might be on your
wish list, something you've seenrecently that you're considering
implementing?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, you know, the one thing that we're just we've
done 2 pilots of, one is a webapp version of a hotel concierge
app. It's digitization of hotelservices and experiences, and
it's pretty cool how simple theymade it to implement. I mean,
you can implement a hotel a day.Right? Why do you have your data
(12:29):
correctly?
And they are currently beingintegrated with Hotel Logix as
we speak so that, you know, if aguest checks into room 401, he
can order whatever he wants viahis web app. Right? And it's
built through Zoom. And thereason we went to web app route
is that I mean, how many hotelapps are you going to download?
It's just it's it's crazy.
(12:50):
And I think the way guests seeit is, when we come to a hotel,
there's a QR code, you scan it,the app opens up, and once you
leave, you forget about it.Right? I don't see myself
interacting with the FourSeasons hotel app on my phone
when I'm not staying at the FourSeasons. Right? I mean, I don't
even go through that app if I'mnot staying there.
(13:11):
That is crazy. So that's onethat we're doing. The second
that we are mucking around withis the voice AI piece, right,
for customer service. The onlybit that we're struggling with
is India has 26 languages andmaybe 260 different dialects to
(13:31):
it. So how do I get vernacularAI voice chat going where the AI
actually understands the need ofthe consumer that may not be in
the Queen's English.
That's the puzzle that we'restill trying to solve. The third
piece that we've startedimplementing across the board,
(13:55):
actually, is kind of a virtualtool for banqueting. Right? And
we've got so many banquet venuesand halls across our hotels. So
in 2 hotels, you started thistrial where, you know, there's a
proper walk through that you cando to the hall.
You can choose the kind ofsetting and display you want,
(14:16):
and you will actually see the 3d rendering of it come up. You
can drag and drop what you wantfrom your menu, and then you
click checkout and a RFP is madefor you instead. And then it's
real time rate, real timeinventory for that banquet hall
as well. Right? And so there'sno picking up the phone and
speaking to anyone.
You can do that, and thensomebody, of course, will call
you to complete the transaction.But I just think that a picture
(14:39):
speaks a 1,000 words, and thefact that if you're able to walk
around the hall, almost likewalking around in a metaverse,
it's kinda cool. Right? So we'vedone that with one
implementation, and now we'retrying to figure out how to rule
it out across the platform, butit's frightfully expensive today
to do. So maybe we won't get to107, but, you know, maybe we can
(15:00):
get to 20 or 30 hotels or thelarger ones at least.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I'm interested to learn a little bit more. You
mentioned the web app for yourguests. What other pieces of
technology do guests use? Like,how is check-in handled at your
properties?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Right now, check-in is very, very simple. You come
to a front desk and you giveyour name and whatever it is,
and you're checked in like it'sa pretty manual process. Right?
Now we've experimented with theentire digital check-in story,
and we're doing a pilot at ahotel at the inn level, right,
which is the bottom of thepyramid, story. So that's been
(15:36):
rebranded as Regenda zed, orRegenda z, and we're rolling
that out.
So how does one do a AI avatarbot that you can go and talk to
and check-in through that bot.There is obviously the safety
and security concerns. So thefact that we do want people to
when they walk into the hotel,they're gonna have to be
(15:57):
scanned. And there's a law inIndia where you will need back a
scanner, people to physicallycheck or walk into a door frame
detector. There is a law that,you know, you do need to take ID
of the person staying in ahotel.
And so keeping all of these lawsin mind, you need human
interaction at some point,right, during the checking
process. So we're trying to seehow we can minimize human
(16:25):
interaction and make it moreseamless. Right? The flip to
that is, you know, we've got a1000000000 and a half people in
India and, you know, somebody'sgonna employ them. Right?
So we don't really want to bereplacing so the purpose of
technology for me, personally,is not to replace the human
being, but to enable them toperform better. Okay? And I
(16:47):
don't think we're ever gonna getto that level of seamlessness
where you can walk through thefront doors and check-in through
your mobile phone and use yourmobile phone in order to open a
room door without meeting asingle human being along the
way. I don't think we'll everget there, but never say never.
We already have that tech.
Right? We just not enabled it,which is to use your phone key
(17:10):
to open the door. I mean, thatexists. Right? That's there with
us too.
Right? We've just not done thatyet.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Taking just a little step back, talk to me about your
rewards program. I understandthat this is a newer addition to
your tech stack. How does itwork? You know, what are all the
pieces that are in play there?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So we wanted to simplify the method of earning
and burning for the customer.And we wanted to simplify the
idea of what they earn and whatdoes that actually amount to.
Right? What does a point mean?Right?
So very simply, if you're a basecategory member, it works out to
be a 2% cashback. Right? So Sothink about it. For every $100
(17:52):
you earn, you want $2 back. Thisis instant real time.
Right? Done. Then if you go to asecond tier of rewards, which
you currently have just 2.Right? And you won 4 rupees of
4% cash back for a $100 that youspent with us.
Right? Now along with that,there's obviously f and b
discounts, you know, betweenanywhere ranging between 15 25%.
(18:15):
There's beverage discounts, spadiscounts. I mean, the the
works. Right?
That's all kind of loaded inthere. Right? In these two
programs. But the key is that ifsomebody sits and earns, you
know, the $2 on his stay, wheredoes he burn it? Right?
And while we're saying you earnwith us as a in a closed
(18:38):
community, right, you've got tocome to me to spend the money
for me to reward you, we wantyou to be able to burn that
money or that 2% cashback thatyou accumulate. I want you to be
able to use it anywhere youplease. Right? Because it's your
money. You know, it's as good asme giving you $2 back for a
$100.
Right? Now if that's theprinciple, right, you could be
(19:00):
sitting at the coffee shop and,you know, at our coffee shop and
use the $2 instantly to buyyourself a cup of coffee, or you
could accumulate that and buyyourself a pair of Levi's jeans.
Right? Get an Amazon voucher forthat amount for all I care.
Right?
So as far as we're concerned,we're very clear that this 2%
(19:22):
that we are allocating towards areward is a debt we owe to the
customer. Okay? And that is aprinciple in which we're saying
if that's a debt I owe, it'ssitting on my balance sheet as
money that I have to pay someonesomewhere or a it's a collective
number of people who I owe thismoney to. Then whether I pay
(19:43):
that money to my own hotel or Ipay that money to a charity or I
pay that money to Amazon, right,that doesn't matter to me.
There's money that has to goanywhere.
Right? So that's kind of how wedesigned it. So we got a rewards
platform partner again to helppower it. We sat and tweaked and
tweaked and tweaked and came upwith, you know, the ideal
(20:04):
program for us. We then had themintegrate with our channel
manager so that guests can bookdirectly, but the booking
engine, we developed ourselves.
Right? So the hotel bookingengine that takes, you know, the
friends and family code, let'ssay, if today, it's your
birthday, it shouldautomatically know that it's
your birthday and thereforeautomatically apply that
(20:24):
discount on your room rate.Right? It just needs to do that.
You know, so it's things likethis that we are doing and
thinking from a guestperspective.
Right? Of how do you get them tobook directly to us, right, or
through the rewards program.Right? But they will get the
best rate and the bestguarantee. The other thing that
we did is, and we're rollingthis out, is that free Wi Fi
(20:45):
across hotel is open to ourrewards program members.
Right? And that's it. Right? Soif you're not a rewards program
member, you don't get free WiFi. Then you pay for it.
Right? Now what we suddenly hadis a 100% of the guests checking
into the hotel now becomerewards members. Right? So in a
matter of two and a half months,we've signed up 370,000 active
(21:06):
rewards program members, andthey're active. It's not like
they're speeding up for the freeWi Fi and bugger off.
If signed up, they're actuallyengaging with us, you know, on a
regular basis. So, you know, wewant to make that engagement
higher, and we're very happy tobe giving away 2 4% cash back to
these guys, but they are loyalmembers who will keep coming
(21:26):
back. Right? And so it's been aconscious effort of getting them
to engage with us more, right,on a regular basis, and,
therefore, allow us theopportunity to reward them.
Right?
That's the principle where we'recoming.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And do you find that guests are happy with the
program? Do you have anysurveys, or do guests mention it
in reviews or anything likethat?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So it's a new program for them to be mentioning in
reviews right now, but, youknow, I can see when I it's
there, walk around some of thehotels. I actually see that at
the restaurant when they'reabout to pay their oh, listen.
I'm a rewards member and pull uptheir it's digital. Right? So
lots of rewards and say, hey.
Listen. Give us the discount.No. That's fine. Right?
But at least they're, you know,they are able to record their
(22:16):
rewards points instantly, andthey're able to earn their
spend. Right?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
How much of a discount are you giving on the
website for the loyalty programmembers?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. Again, it's tiered based, and it's also
length of stay based, and it'sthe number of room nights you've
done. So, anyway, up 10% andabove. But what's interesting is
that, you know, we've got agamification piece where you get
instant rewards. I mean, youknow, 1 month, you could get a
cup of coffee at any of thehotels.
The next month, you could get 2nights free at any of the
(22:50):
hotels. So, you know, we'reputting in the idea of instant
gratification because I think intoday's generation, if I sign
up, what do I get? It's like, inorder to sign up, you get free
WiFi and you get a discount. Ifyou stay with us, instantly you
get, you know, free beverage.Right?
So you get a beer free themoment you check-in for the
first time. Right? So that'skind of instant gratification
(23:11):
for the customer. Right? So it'sa combination of discounts, and
it's a combination of freebies.
Right? We had to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I'm curious to hear about a couple of your top
business objectives. As youthink about the future of Royal
Orchid Hotels, what are a couplehigh level goals that you're
working toward, and how doestechnology help you get there?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Very simply, we this Regenta zed, or zed by Regenta
value price hotel platform thatwe are rolling out starting this
month is a pure play franchisemodel. Right? So the way that
we're imagining our business isthat on one silo, you have brand
(23:57):
technology and basically brandtechnology and the revenue of
that technology. Right? Therevenue of those hotels coming
on one side.
On the other side, we've gothotels where we own the asset
and we own the, basically, themeat of the business. So if you
look at the management companyside of things, technology plays
a really vital role for usbecause it's the way to ensure
(24:19):
standard basically, ensure rateparity for the customers. You
know, we've done I think we'reamong the only hotel companies
in the world that does a dailyprofit and loss account for each
of our hotels. Okay? So yougotta know real time how much
money you made at the end of theday, right, in each hotel.
K? And that is only enabled bytechnology. So even for the
(24:42):
smaller hotels, I mean, you havehotels in our system that are 30
rooms. Right? That's it.
Right? We've got hotels now in70 locations around India. Some
are in far flung locations whereaccess to regular monitoring is
way tough. So you have to relyon the individual sitting there.
So be it, you know, highdefinition remote cameras to
(25:04):
ensuring that a guest hasseamless check-in experience
with the Wi Fi being availableto the fact that, you know, you
have to monitor the inventory ofthe hotel, you know, that the
guy's got his soap and whatevershower gel in the hotel room
that is consistent with the restof the premises, the rest of the
group.
And so, you know, I mean,they're little piece of the
(25:24):
puzzle that all have to cometogether, and they're all
available just because allmonitorable by corporate office
just because we've been able toor we're trying to set up this
seamless cloud based tech stack.Right? And on the zen platform
piece, you know, we got really,really ambitious targets of
(25:45):
franchise to hit a couple of 100hotels in the next 2 years.
Right? How do I do that withoutactually going in there with a
hotel in a box model, which ishere are all the branding
elements, here are all thetechnology elements, and you're
off to the races.
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Have you thought about any roles on property
being able to do business from asmartphone? Like, I don't know,
housekeeping supervisor. Youknow, is the PMS available on
mobile? Yeah. We have thatalready.
We have
Speaker 1 (26:14):
that already. That's rolled out. PMS mobile, you
know, rooms whether they'reclean, not clean, under
renovation, you know, all ofthose stats are there, are able.
We have mobile check-in today.We have the ability to check-in
our guest on an iPad.
Right? So all of that, that waskind of done on day 0. But
that's enabled and it's notrolled out across the platform
(26:37):
yet. Right? But it's there.
Right? You know, it's being donein, couple of the hotels where
guests have more time. Right?Say the check-in process and all
of that. You know?
We take them to the room. Weexplain what the room features
are, the property features are,sit there and have a cup of tea
with them, and then get them tosign on an iPad. I mean, all
that stuff is there. But, youknow, we have the ability and
(26:58):
we've started rolling that outof taking orders on a mobile
phone, right, rather than on abattery paper. So that's there.
That's there. We've enabled allthat there.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
In just the last couple of minutes we have, I'm
curious, based on yourexperience, what would you say
are 1 or 2 skills that ahotelier should have to be
successful today?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Humility. First skill. There's always going to
be somebody who's going to doparticular process or a
restaurant or a room. Somebody'sgonna do always gonna do it
better. Always.
Right? You need to be humble torealize that, you know, what you
were will not be who you aretomorrow, And, therefore, you
(27:46):
have to continue to want tolearn with the changes in the
market. Right? You have tocontinue, and you have to be
humble enough to learn, to knowthat you don't know it all.
Right?
That's the first thing. And Ithink that the second piece that
I've learned, right, is the oldadage. Right? They say the guest
is always right. I thinkhospitality has to design itself
(28:09):
around what the guest wants andnot what it who's the guest.
At the end of the day, they'rethe ones paying the bills.
Right? And by that, I mean that,you know, in the hotel school
back in the day, you were taughtabout how a service should be
done and you serve from theleft, you know, from the right,
all of that nonsense. Right? Andwe've done all of that stuff.
(28:30):
But, really, does that matter?Right? In today's day and age
where the customer ispredominantly younger than what
they were back in the day,they're influenced by pop
culture, and they have a shorterattention span than what people
had, you know, 2 decades ago.Right? They are far more casual
today than they were.
Right? Do we really need tostick to our rules of engagement
(28:53):
with the customer, or should weadapt to the way the customer
wants us to serve them? Right?And that I think is extremely
important that old adage of thecustomer is always right is true
because we need to adapt to whatthe customer wants. Right?
And, also, you know, what I'velearned is that we don't need to
(29:14):
speak the queen's English inorder to serve the customer. We
just need to speak the languageof the customer in order to
serve the customer. And thoseare 2 hugely different things.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Well, thank you so much, Arjun, for your time. It
was great chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Thank you so much, Arjun. It's been a pleasure
speaking to you.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by Hotel Tech Report
dotcom. Our goal with thispodcast is to show you how the
best in the business areleveraging technology to grow
their properties and outperformthe concept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(29:55):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Do you
Speaker 2 (30:06):
know a hotelier who would be great to feature on
this show, or do you think thatyour story would bring a lot of
value to our audience? Reach outto me directly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
I don't think we're ever gonna get to that level of
seamlessness where you can walkthrough the front doors and
check-in through your mobilephone and use your mobile phone
in order to open a room doorwithout meeting a single human
being along the way, I don'tthink we'll ever get there.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider,
a show about the future ofhotels and the technology that
powers them.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
On this episode, we speak with Arjun Bal the
president of Royal OrchidHotels. This India based company
operates over 100 propertiesincluding over 250 food and
beverage outlets. Arjun walks usthrough his tech stack which is
composed of many innovativestartups that work together to
form one holistic techecosystem. And this program has
(00:48):
contributed to a boost in directbookings in the few months since
implementation. I like to startthe conversation by learning a
bit about your background andyour current role.
Would you please tell me whatyou're doing now and what your
role consists of, what yourresponsibilities are, and a
little bit about your company aswell?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Sure. My name is Arjun Balaji. I'm the president
of Royal Oak Kid Hotels. RoyalOak Kid is a full stack hotel
company. We have a little over a100 actually, a 108 operating
hotels in India.
We've got a couple of hotelsoperating in Nepal and one in
Sri Lanka. We are an Indiancompany. We started with the
idea of bringing hospitalityacross the board. We are now in
(01:32):
the middle of reimagining ourbusiness just because we have
scale per se. So in reimaginingour business, you know, we are
creating new hotel brands.
So we have a slew of 5 hotelbrands that we're rolling out.
It's fast growing. We havehotels that we own, we lease, we
manage, and we franchise. We runall the f and b ourselves, so
(01:53):
that'll be about 250 odd f and boutlets plus banquets plus you
know, so it's a large operation.And in order to enable this, we
started our journey to move tothe cloud from a PMS perspective
about 4 years ago.
And, obviously, I found it, youknow, interesting and
challenging. And, yeah, we're onthat journey now, and we're
(02:16):
integrating with multipletechnologies to enable us to do
things in a more seamlessmanner. So my job today in the
company is, about reimaginingthe brands that we have, setting
each brand on a path to growth,setting process and systems to
enable those brands, and thatone of those facets is to use
(02:38):
technology in an effectivemanner so that we can, you know,
monitor the growth of thesebrands. Our hotel owners are
happy with how they'reperforming, and we can push more
guest services through thosetechnologies to make the lives
of our guests easier.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And you mentioned there are a couple of brands
within the Royal Orchidportfolio. How many brands are
you working with?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So they're all our own brands. Royal Orchid Hotels
has their own brands. We've gotRoyal Orchid, which is an
upscale brand that we'vecurrently got, across 15
locations, and the rest fallunder a brand called Regenta.
And Regenta has a number ofsilos under it. So it's got
Regenta Inn, which is going tobe rebranded now.
Then we got Regenta Place, whichis the quirky fun local hotel.
(03:25):
And then, you know, you've gotLegenda Centrals, which are your
bog standard, what you see iswhat you get kind of 4 style
hotel offering.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And are the properties typically in urban
areas? Who's your typical guest?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
It's even key across the board with business and
leisure. I think what's happenedin India over the last couple of
years is people are even willingto go and check out, you know,
thanks to COVID, the exploreIndia offering has grown
considerably. So, you know,we've basically doubled our
portfolio in the last 3 years.It's been an incredible hockey
stick type of growth. And as Isaid, we're currently an Indian
(04:02):
company catering to India.
Right? And it's India, middlemarket, and Apple middle market
who we cater to, and that's ourguest. So it could be the same
corporate customer who comesinto our city hotels, who then
takes his family and friendsover to one of our vacation
spots for the weekend. So kindaworks out to be pretty much the
(04:23):
same kind of customer.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Got it. Very cool. And one thing you mentioned just
briefly is you have doubled yourportfolio size in the last
couple of years. Can you talk tome about how technology has
maybe helped you with thatgrowth or made that growth more
efficient?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, you know, it's not so much the technology that
has made that efficient. Ithink, the fact that there's
opportunity in India, you know,we're a very agile hotel
company. We follow an asset likemodel right now, so it's kind of
a management platform to, youknow, wanna call it that. So
we're very flexible with thehotel owners. However, with each
of our contracts, we're veryclear that I go back to
(05:03):
hospitality first principles.
Right? And we kind of use asimple 2 part question in making
any decision across the board.And the first question is, will
my guest love it? And the secondquestion is, will it make me
money? And if the answer is yesto both those questions, we go
ahead and do it.
And so part of the digitizationof our company stem from those
(05:28):
2. Right? So you've got, youknow, typical hotel tech stack.
Right? Like, we've got the PMS.
You've got basically the channelmanager. You've got revenue
manager. You've got all thesedifferent pieces of software
that come together to make ahotel work. What we found over
our years of, I wanna sayexperimentation, is that there
(05:52):
are either the super largeOracle Mycross type people who
do a phenomenal job at what theydo, but they're frankly
expensive for the smaller hotelsand the Indian hotels that we
operate. Right?
So we had to go and tinkeraround and find a tech stack
that suited us. And that techstack was a culmination of
(06:15):
specific hotel piece or specificpiece of software that actually
are really good at what they do.Right? So we got post folks who
do, you know, their onlineaccounting platform, and they're
phenomenal. So we have hotellogics sitting in the middle of
it, and then, you know, like,listen.
How do I take hotel logics andAPI integrated with pauses,
which is a phenomenal food andbeverage offering, a beverage
(06:36):
management platform, And connectthat to Hostbooks, which is the
accounting platform foreverything else. That then gets
connected to Rategain, which isthe channel manager. Right? And
then it's connected to anotherpiece of revenue management
software. And you got Salesforcesitting somewhere that is
connected to all of it so thatsales and marketing and
(06:57):
development efforts can kind of,you know, go through the
Salesforce channel.
Right? So we've had to pick andchoose all of these, you know,
5, 6 different pieces ofsoftware and make them talk to
each other. And in doing that,we came up with a really cool
tech stack that is nowcompulsory for our Dell owners
(07:17):
to adopt. Right? But at the sametime, the text tag is cost
effective for them to adopt.
Right? And that really was avery interesting little piece
where you could go to a hotelowner. It's a cost per room
basis right, that we don't makeany money out of. Right? So it's
a direct contract between thehotel owner and the tech
(07:38):
companies themselves.
Right? But we'll just ensurethat this is all implemented for
them at a really, really costeffective manner.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Tell me a bit about how these changes come into
play. Like, you have an idea.You suggest it to maybe the
product team at Hotel Logix. Andare they generally supportive of
building it, or is there somenegotiation there?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I could tell you that with Hotel Logix, you know,
they're a startup. They're awell funded startup. They are
agile. Their founders areincredible people, and they
kinda get it. Right?
So exactly the same ethos of mesharing value or knowledge with
them. And where do I get thisidea? I don't get this idea.
Right? It's never me.
It's always a user within ourecosystem, within the hotels,
(08:25):
who comes back and says, listen.If this functionality was there,
it'll just make our life easier.Right? So that demand has come
from the end user, not from me.I I don't know how to even run
that piece of tech, frankly.
Right? So somebody who's the enduser of that tech comes up with
a request. It goes back to us tosay, maybe if it's done in the x
(08:46):
manner, it'll help our endemployee. And then we send that
on to Telogix to say, hey.Listen.
Is this possible? They wouldthen come back with we already
have this tool, and maybe youcould let's get a new training
session done. Or it's a goodidea. Let's develop it or let's
dwell on it and then develop it.You know, 4 to 6 week cycle, we
(09:09):
have an impacts that we wanted.
Right? So it's been acollaborative effort with all of
our vendors, right, to try andget the best solution that our
end user and for software, ourend user is our employee. Right?
It's the last waiter. It's thelast housekeeper.
It's the last front desk agent.Right? So we need to ensure that
(09:29):
everything works.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
And you mentioned it was about 4 years ago that you
migrated from a legacy system toHotel Logix. Tell me about how
you chose Hotel Logix. How didthat decision come to pass that
you were ready to change PMSvendors, which I can imagine for
a portfolio your size is nosmall feat?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Well, listen. It's an ongoing process. Just remember
that, you know, we added 50hotels over the last 3 years.
Right? So then there was COVIDbefore that.
We lost a number of hotels.Number of hotels shut down. So
this journey actually startedjust before COVID when we
decided that, listen, we want todigitize. We wanna move to the
cloud, and let's go out and shoparound for a PMS system that
(10:14):
actually suits us. Now the onething that I could tell you is
that one of the key decisions ofchoosing Hotel Logix was that
their founders were in India,and they were backed by name
brand venture partners, likeAccel Ventures that Accel put
money in them.
Right? So there's automaticcredibility with Accel that I
(10:37):
didn't put the stamp of approvalon them. Right? That was a key
consideration. The fact thatthey were accessible to us, this
was an experiment that we werestarting with, and I didn't want
to and we started with just acouple of hotels.
Right? So the experiment waslet's start with a couple of
hotels that we own, that we cancontrol, and then if things
(10:57):
don't work out, we can move backreally quickly to the legacy
systems. So now months on end,we'll be actually 2 systems
running in parallel. Right? Itwas a complete pain for hotel
operations team, but we had todo that.
Right? So there were a number ofvendors who we spoke to, and I
just think there was a meetingof the minds between the
(11:17):
founders at Hotel Logix and us.Right? It really was. It was a
meeting of minds.
It was something that we got oninstantly with the vision that
they were on and the path theywere on and where I kind of saw
my company going through. Right?And it just kind of became a
story where, alright. Well, youknow, let's grow together.
(11:39):
Right?
Rather than you being a vendorper se and me being a client and
me begging you to go forservice. And it just morphed
into a partnership rather than avendor seller type situation.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Is there any new vendor on the market, not for
PMS, but for another type ofsoftware that might be on your
wish list, something you've seenrecently that you're considering
implementing?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, you know, the one thing that we're just we've
done 2 pilots of, one is a webapp version of a hotel concierge
app. It's digitization of hotelservices and experiences, and
it's pretty cool how simple theymade it to implement. I mean,
you can implement a hotel a day.Right? Why do you have your data
(12:29):
correctly?
And they are currently beingintegrated with Hotel Logix as
we speak so that, you know, if aguest checks into room 401, he
can order whatever he wants viahis web app. Right? And it's
built through Zoom. And thereason we went to web app route
is that I mean, how many hotelapps are you going to download?
It's just it's it's crazy.
(12:50):
And I think the way guests seeit is, when we come to a hotel,
there's a QR code, you scan it,the app opens up, and once you
leave, you forget about it.Right? I don't see myself
interacting with the FourSeasons hotel app on my phone
when I'm not staying at the FourSeasons. Right? I mean, I don't
even go through that app if I'mnot staying there.
(13:11):
That is crazy. So that's onethat we're doing. The second
that we are mucking around withis the voice AI piece, right,
for customer service. The onlybit that we're struggling with
is India has 26 languages andmaybe 260 different dialects to
(13:31):
it. So how do I get vernacularAI voice chat going where the AI
actually understands the need ofthe consumer that may not be in
the Queen's English.
That's the puzzle that we'restill trying to solve. The third
piece that we've startedimplementing across the board,
(13:55):
actually, is kind of a virtualtool for banqueting. Right? And
we've got so many banquet venuesand halls across our hotels. So
in 2 hotels, you started thistrial where, you know, there's a
proper walk through that you cando to the hall.
You can choose the kind ofsetting and display you want,
(14:16):
and you will actually see the 3d rendering of it come up. You
can drag and drop what you wantfrom your menu, and then you
click checkout and a RFP is madefor you instead. And then it's
real time rate, real timeinventory for that banquet hall
as well. Right? And so there'sno picking up the phone and
speaking to anyone.
You can do that, and thensomebody, of course, will call
you to complete the transaction.But I just think that a picture
(14:39):
speaks a 1,000 words, and thefact that if you're able to walk
around the hall, almost likewalking around in a metaverse,
it's kinda cool. Right? So we'vedone that with one
implementation, and now we'retrying to figure out how to rule
it out across the platform, butit's frightfully expensive today
to do. So maybe we won't get to107, but, you know, maybe we can
(15:00):
get to 20 or 30 hotels or thelarger ones at least.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I'm interested to learn a little bit more. You
mentioned the web app for yourguests. What other pieces of
technology do guests use? Like,how is check-in handled at your
properties?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Right now, check-in is very, very simple. You come
to a front desk and you giveyour name and whatever it is,
and you're checked in like it'sa pretty manual process. Right?
Now we've experimented with theentire digital check-in story,
and we're doing a pilot at ahotel at the inn level, right,
which is the bottom of thepyramid, story. So that's been
(15:36):
rebranded as Regenda zed, orRegenda z, and we're rolling
that out.
So how does one do a AI avatarbot that you can go and talk to
and check-in through that bot.There is obviously the safety
and security concerns. So thefact that we do want people to
when they walk into the hotel,they're gonna have to be
(15:57):
scanned. And there's a law inIndia where you will need back a
scanner, people to physicallycheck or walk into a door frame
detector. There is a law that,you know, you do need to take ID
of the person staying in ahotel.
And so keeping all of these lawsin mind, you need human
interaction at some point,right, during the checking
process. So we're trying to seehow we can minimize human
(16:25):
interaction and make it moreseamless. Right? The flip to
that is, you know, we've got a1000000000 and a half people in
India and, you know, somebody'sgonna employ them. Right?
So we don't really want to bereplacing so the purpose of
technology for me, personally,is not to replace the human
being, but to enable them toperform better. Okay? And I
(16:47):
don't think we're ever gonna getto that level of seamlessness
where you can walk through thefront doors and check-in through
your mobile phone and use yourmobile phone in order to open a
room door without meeting asingle human being along the
way. I don't think we'll everget there, but never say never.
We already have that tech.
Right? We just not enabled it,which is to use your phone key
(17:10):
to open the door. I mean, thatexists. Right? That's there with
us too.
Right? We've just not done thatyet.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Taking just a little step back, talk to me about your
rewards program. I understandthat this is a newer addition to
your tech stack. How does itwork? You know, what are all the
pieces that are in play there?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
So we wanted to simplify the method of earning
and burning for the customer.And we wanted to simplify the
idea of what they earn and whatdoes that actually amount to.
Right? What does a point mean?Right?
So very simply, if you're a basecategory member, it works out to
be a 2% cashback. Right? So Sothink about it. For every $100
(17:52):
you earn, you want $2 back. Thisis instant real time.
Right? Done. Then if you go to asecond tier of rewards, which
you currently have just 2.Right? And you won 4 rupees of
4% cash back for a $100 that youspent with us.
Right? Now along with that,there's obviously f and b
discounts, you know, betweenanywhere ranging between 15 25%.
(18:15):
There's beverage discounts, spadiscounts. I mean, the the
works. Right?
That's all kind of loaded inthere. Right? In these two
programs. But the key is that ifsomebody sits and earns, you
know, the $2 on his stay, wheredoes he burn it? Right?
And while we're saying you earnwith us as a in a closed
(18:38):
community, right, you've got tocome to me to spend the money
for me to reward you, we wantyou to be able to burn that
money or that 2% cashback thatyou accumulate. I want you to be
able to use it anywhere youplease. Right? Because it's your
money. You know, it's as good asme giving you $2 back for a
$100.
Right? Now if that's theprinciple, right, you could be
(19:00):
sitting at the coffee shop and,you know, at our coffee shop and
use the $2 instantly to buyyourself a cup of coffee, or you
could accumulate that and buyyourself a pair of Levi's jeans.
Right? Get an Amazon voucher forthat amount for all I care.
Right?
So as far as we're concerned,we're very clear that this 2%
(19:22):
that we are allocating towards areward is a debt we owe to the
customer. Okay? And that is aprinciple in which we're saying
if that's a debt I owe, it'ssitting on my balance sheet as
money that I have to pay someonesomewhere or a it's a collective
number of people who I owe thismoney to. Then whether I pay
(19:43):
that money to my own hotel or Ipay that money to a charity or I
pay that money to Amazon, right,that doesn't matter to me.
There's money that has to goanywhere.
Right? So that's kind of how wedesigned it. So we got a rewards
platform partner again to helppower it. We sat and tweaked and
tweaked and tweaked and came upwith, you know, the ideal
(20:04):
program for us. We then had themintegrate with our channel
manager so that guests can bookdirectly, but the booking
engine, we developed ourselves.
Right? So the hotel bookingengine that takes, you know, the
friends and family code, let'ssay, if today, it's your
birthday, it shouldautomatically know that it's
your birthday and thereforeautomatically apply that
(20:24):
discount on your room rate.Right? It just needs to do that.
You know, so it's things likethis that we are doing and
thinking from a guestperspective.
Right? Of how do you get them tobook directly to us, right, or
through the rewards program.Right? But they will get the
best rate and the bestguarantee. The other thing that
we did is, and we're rollingthis out, is that free Wi Fi
(20:45):
across hotel is open to ourrewards program members.
Right? And that's it. Right? Soif you're not a rewards program
member, you don't get free WiFi. Then you pay for it.
Right? Now what we suddenly hadis a 100% of the guests checking
into the hotel now becomerewards members. Right? So in a
matter of two and a half months,we've signed up 370,000 active
(21:06):
rewards program members, andthey're active. It's not like
they're speeding up for the freeWi Fi and bugger off.
If signed up, they're actuallyengaging with us, you know, on a
regular basis. So, you know, wewant to make that engagement
higher, and we're very happy tobe giving away 2 4% cash back to
these guys, but they are loyalmembers who will keep coming
(21:26):
back. Right? And so it's been aconscious effort of getting them
to engage with us more, right,on a regular basis, and,
therefore, allow us theopportunity to reward them.
Right?
That's the principle where we'recoming.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And do you find that guests are happy with the
program? Do you have anysurveys, or do guests mention it
in reviews or anything likethat?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So it's a new program for them to be mentioning in
reviews right now, but, youknow, I can see when I it's
there, walk around some of thehotels. I actually see that at
the restaurant when they'reabout to pay their oh, listen.
I'm a rewards member and pull uptheir it's digital. Right? So
lots of rewards and say, hey.
Listen. Give us the discount.No. That's fine. Right?
But at least they're, you know,they are able to record their
(22:16):
rewards points instantly, andthey're able to earn their
spend. Right?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
How much of a discount are you giving on the
website for the loyalty programmembers?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. Again, it's tiered based, and it's also
length of stay based, and it'sthe number of room nights you've
done. So, anyway, up 10% andabove. But what's interesting is
that, you know, we've got agamification piece where you get
instant rewards. I mean, youknow, 1 month, you could get a
cup of coffee at any of thehotels.
The next month, you could get 2nights free at any of the
(22:50):
hotels. So, you know, we'reputting in the idea of instant
gratification because I think intoday's generation, if I sign
up, what do I get? It's like, inorder to sign up, you get free
WiFi and you get a discount. Ifyou stay with us, instantly you
get, you know, free beverage.Right?
So you get a beer free themoment you check-in for the
first time. Right? So that'skind of instant gratification
(23:11):
for the customer. Right? So it'sa combination of discounts, and
it's a combination of freebies.
Right? We had to do that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I'm curious to hear about a couple of your top
business objectives. As youthink about the future of Royal
Orchid Hotels, what are a couplehigh level goals that you're
working toward, and how doestechnology help you get there?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Very simply, we this Regenta zed, or zed by Regenta
value price hotel platform thatwe are rolling out starting this
month is a pure play franchisemodel. Right? So the way that
we're imagining our business isthat on one silo, you have brand
(23:57):
technology and basically brandtechnology and the revenue of
that technology. Right? Therevenue of those hotels coming
on one side.
On the other side, we've gothotels where we own the asset
and we own the, basically, themeat of the business. So if you
look at the management companyside of things, technology plays
a really vital role for usbecause it's the way to ensure
(24:19):
standard basically, ensure rateparity for the customers. You
know, we've done I think we'reamong the only hotel companies
in the world that does a dailyprofit and loss account for each
of our hotels. Okay? So yougotta know real time how much
money you made at the end of theday, right, in each hotel.
K? And that is only enabled bytechnology. So even for the
(24:42):
smaller hotels, I mean, you havehotels in our system that are 30
rooms. Right? That's it.
Right? We've got hotels now in70 locations around India. Some
are in far flung locations whereaccess to regular monitoring is
way tough. So you have to relyon the individual sitting there.
So be it, you know, highdefinition remote cameras to
(25:04):
ensuring that a guest hasseamless check-in experience
with the Wi Fi being availableto the fact that, you know, you
have to monitor the inventory ofthe hotel, you know, that the
guy's got his soap and whatevershower gel in the hotel room
that is consistent with the restof the premises, the rest of the
group.
And so, you know, I mean,they're little piece of the
(25:24):
puzzle that all have to cometogether, and they're all
available just because allmonitorable by corporate office
just because we've been able toor we're trying to set up this
seamless cloud based tech stack.Right? And on the zen platform
piece, you know, we got really,really ambitious targets of
(25:45):
franchise to hit a couple of 100hotels in the next 2 years.
Right? How do I do that withoutactually going in there with a
hotel in a box model, which ishere are all the branding
elements, here are all thetechnology elements, and you're
off to the races.
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Have you thought about any roles on property
being able to do business from asmartphone? Like, I don't know,
housekeeping supervisor. Youknow, is the PMS available on
mobile? Yeah. We have thatalready.
We have
Speaker 1 (26:14):
that already. That's rolled out. PMS mobile, you
know, rooms whether they'reclean, not clean, under
renovation, you know, all ofthose stats are there, are able.
We have mobile check-in today.We have the ability to check-in
our guest on an iPad.
Right? So all of that, that waskind of done on day 0. But
that's enabled and it's notrolled out across the platform
(26:37):
yet. Right? But it's there.
Right? You know, it's being donein, couple of the hotels where
guests have more time. Right?Say the check-in process and all
of that. You know?
We take them to the room. Weexplain what the room features
are, the property features are,sit there and have a cup of tea
with them, and then get them tosign on an iPad. I mean, all
that stuff is there. But, youknow, we have the ability and
(26:58):
we've started rolling that outof taking orders on a mobile
phone, right, rather than on abattery paper. So that's there.
That's there. We've enabled allthat there.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
In just the last couple of minutes we have, I'm
curious, based on yourexperience, what would you say
are 1 or 2 skills that ahotelier should have to be
successful today?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Humility. First skill. There's always going to
be somebody who's going to doparticular process or a
restaurant or a room. Somebody'sgonna do always gonna do it
better. Always.
Right? You need to be humble torealize that, you know, what you
were will not be who you aretomorrow, And, therefore, you
(27:46):
have to continue to want tolearn with the changes in the
market. Right? You have tocontinue, and you have to be
humble enough to learn, to knowthat you don't know it all.
Right?
That's the first thing. And Ithink that the second piece that
I've learned, right, is the oldadage. Right? They say the guest
is always right. I thinkhospitality has to design itself
(28:09):
around what the guest wants andnot what it who's the guest.
At the end of the day, they'rethe ones paying the bills.
Right? And by that, I mean that,you know, in the hotel school
back in the day, you were taughtabout how a service should be
done and you serve from theleft, you know, from the right,
all of that nonsense. Right? Andwe've done all of that stuff.
(28:30):
But, really, does that matter?Right? In today's day and age
where the customer ispredominantly younger than what
they were back in the day,they're influenced by pop
culture, and they have a shorterattention span than what people
had, you know, 2 decades ago.Right? They are far more casual
today than they were.
Right? Do we really need tostick to our rules of engagement
(28:53):
with the customer, or should weadapt to the way the customer
wants us to serve them? Right?And that I think is extremely
important that old adage of thecustomer is always right is true
because we need to adapt to whatthe customer wants. Right?
And, also, you know, what I'velearned is that we don't need to
(29:14):
speak the queen's English inorder to serve the customer. We
just need to speak the languageof the customer in order to
serve the customer. And thoseare 2 hugely different things.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Well, thank you so much, Arjun, for your time. It
was great chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Thank you so much, Arjun. It's been a pleasure
speaking to you.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's all for today's episode. Thanks for
listening to Hotel Tech Insiderproduced by Hotel Tech Report
dotcom. Our goal with thispodcast is to show you how the
best in the business areleveraging technology to grow
their properties and outperformthe concept by using innovative
digital tools and strategies. Iencourage all of our listeners
to go try at least one of thesestrategies or tools that you
(29:55):
learned from today's episode.Successful digital
transformation is all aboutconsistent small experiments
over a long period of time, sodon't wait until tomorrow to try
something new.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Do you
Speaker 2 (30:06):
know a hotelier who would be great to feature on
this show, or do you think thatyour story would bring a lot of
value to our audience? Reach outto me directly on LinkedIn by
searching for Jordan Hollander.For more episodes like this,
follow Hotel Tech Insider on allmajor streaming platforms like
Spotify and Apple Music.
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