Born and raised in Delhi, Anuj Chaurasia, Corporate General Manager, Essentia Hotels – a unit of Averina Hotels Pvt Ltd, moved to Kolkata for doing hotel management from the Institute of Advanced Management and since then, has been enjoying an exciting journey filled with multiple challenges, learning under various professionals whom he looks up to as his mentors and gaining diverse experience in various cities and hotel brands. Here is more on his journey, featured exclusively in BOTT.
Priyanka Saxena Ray
What was your first job (in which hotel and at what profile)?
I started my career as a Management Trainee in Housekeeping with “the Leela Hotels”. I worked with them for two years. It was great that at the initial point of my career, I got an opportunity to work with them as during that time “The Leela” was considered to be the epitome of luxury hospitality in India.
How did you climb up the ladder? How many hotels have you worked with and in what capacities?
I consider myself lucky to have been mentored by some excellent leaders in the industry wherever I worked, and I have backed that up with a lot of hard work overtime. I believe there is not shortcut to hard work. In hindsight I think I was there at the right time with the right set of people and the work environment allowed me to grow. This growth mindset supported by a good team and guided by great mentors and the working opportunity with some of the best brands in the market, prepared me adequately to not only be a good housekeeper but also an efficient business manager.
After a stint as an HK executive at the Leela, I joined Lemon Tree hotels, which turned out to be a great decision for my career. At Lemon Tree, I learned a lot about pre-opening and operations as I worked at the pre-opening of multiple Lemon Tree hotels in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and renovation in Goa.
I then spent some time at the Taj group, where I worked at the Taj Ambassador and the Taj Holiday Village. Since my time at the Taj, I have further worked as an Executive Housekeeper in the Maldives and then worked with an upscale hotel project in Varanasi as an advisor to the businesses Managing Director and did pre-opening and execution of the complete hotel project.
After this I joined an entrepreneurial spirit driven start-up in Spree Hotels, run by Mr. Keshav Baljee of the Royal Orchid group. At Spree, I learned a lot about the commercial side of the management model as I oversaw not only operations for 600 rooms across 12 hotels but was also involved in financial reviews, contract negotiation, development, and sales and marketing efforts.
After Spree, I moved to Treebo Hotels a Head Operations for Managed Business where I managed 550 rooms across 18 hotels before finally joining Essentia Hotels a subsidiary of the Averina Group, which owns and operates Holiday Inn hotel Goa and fisherman wharf restaurants apart from Essentia where I currently serve as Corporate GM for Essentia.
Could you share with us details of some challenges you faced along the way?
I think there were many challenges along the way and every day presented some new challenges, the key somehow I feel is in the approach or personal attitude as to how you rather choose to respond rather than react.
How long have you been attached to the current Hotel (or chain)? How has your experience with the property be?
I have just completed 1 year with Essentia Hotels and the experience has been great. Before the pandemic we were working on aggressive growth plans. We have signed a 151-room hotel in Ghaziabad, 71 rooms in Chennai OMR, 50 rooms in Pune Hinjewadi, 108 in Indore and another 120 rooms in Udaipur all these are mid-scale hotels. We plan to go live with our Ghaziabad hotel towards September and rest all are next year onwards.
What Special changes would you now be implementing considering the pandemic? How severely has your business been affected?
It has strained the industry; many hotels are running dangerously short of working capital with no demand on the horizon. Hotels are trying to find alternative ways to monetize their inventory or risk bankruptcy in the coming months. The closure of hotels is leading to mass layoffs in the short term creating significant unemployment. However, I remain optimistic that in the long run, hotels will bounce back as they have done in the past.
After Covid-19 hotels will need to fundamentally alter the way they function, with much leaner staffing, higher operational efficiency, tighter control on costs, and a focus on health and hygiene as many guests will have apprehension about cleanliness and safety. So, while Covid-19 will cause short term challenges, in the long run, it presents the industry an opportunity to fundamentally change the way it functions.
At Essentia we have been adapting to all the new changes, we have been preparing to open our Ghaziabad hotel by September in a limited way. We are working on QR code menus, we are about to launch our new SOPs as per the guidelines, etc, few offerings have been altered as per the crisis and lots more is currently work in progress.
In this present COVID scenario, where people are scared to travel again, how is your company planning to address the trust and confidence issues amongst the consumers?
We believe demand would take time to come but it is important to build confidence with our guests that while they stay at a hotel they should not only feel safe and secure, but are actually safe and secure. To ensure the same we are following all laid down norms such as –
Staff wearing safety gears, such as, mask gloves and practicing not social but physical distancing, as we believe that our industry is such a social industry, meaning people centric and we can still try to flatten the curve by remaining physically distant as per global safety guidelines but still remain social by leveraging modern communication tools and giving the non-touch version of human touch to our guests
- All staff screened for temperature daily
- All luggage disinfected on arrival and departure
- Disinfection at property regularly
- Sanitizers being installed
- Oximeters available at reception
- IRD trays getting sanitized after every order etc.
- And many more…
While we do follow the all laid down standards and try to build confidence, the major change in pattern would only happen once the Covid-19 curve becomes flat or starts dropping or with the launch of vaccine. Till that time, we all would have to manage with keeping cost low and work with innovative methods to boost revenue like laundry service, Covid related business, food delivery or co-working spaces, etc.
