Priyanka Saxena Ray
Association with Nest Jaipur
I joined The Nest Jaipur in January 2022, which is like seven months prior while it was still a pre-opening hotel. Initially, the hotel had to open in early last year but with the pandemic coming and going, it got delayed. However, it was soft opened in July 2021 and have been keeping busy since then, organising few weddings and arranging stays. We were also in the process of standardising all procedures, making SOPs for department, doing a brand orientation, trying to place Nest as a new brand in the luxury segment.
What makes Nest special?
We are a new baby in the market, but one that has a plan. The owner has a vision in place for Nest, which is why we didn’t sign up with any of the brands because most of the brands are international and national brands and we wanted to make our own image in the market. The Nest Jaipur has all the essence of being a luxury brand. We are a 107 key hotels, 99 rooms and eight suites and the hotel is spread over in nine acres of land. The best part is that the hotel is constructed with a lot of love and passion. It is a perfect amalgamation of a very cosmopolitan and ethnic Rajasthan. Each room has a story to tell. So every room has a different architecture. Yes, different architecture! Different paint, different theme, different look and feel. So if you are staying in Nest, even for the 10th time, you would not feel that you’re staying in a hotel, where you have already stayed before. All the suites have different themes, for example, we have the Monsoon Suite, Autumn Suite, Winter Suite and every suite tells you a story. Like monsoon suite has the essence of this rain drop. So all the wallpapers which have been installed in suites are customized. It is a unique hotel that offers a different experience each time you stay with us. Also, connectivity to Jaipur is soon going to get stronger. Once the construction of the final leg of the Delhi-Jaipur highway is complete, we would only be at a distance of 3-hour’s drive from Gurugram! The Nest is situated a little outside the city lines, giving people a breather from the town traffic and bringing us closer to Delhi or any other people coming to Jaipur by road.
Occupancies
At the moment, we are doing about 35% to 40%. But by the end of this year, we are targeting an occupancy of 65%. And going forward, we’ll see the flow and the influx which is coming from outside. Inbound is not open as yet. Inbound is going to open from September, so we will observe the period from September to March just to watch the traffic. And then we will project the next year.
Expansion plans
The owners of the property are not hoteliers and have a strong expansion plan in place. However, post Covid, they want to understand the hospitality market first before making their move. They want to explore and seek the correct opportunity to be at the right place at the right time. Currently, they have a land banks in Goa, Jaipur and few other places and their plan is to make another five hotel in ten years’ time, which is a very optimistic thought. So even if you come back with three more hotels, I think that would be a great growth trajectory.
Next new hotel
Our immediate next hotel would be in Goa, in 2023. So currently, we are testing the market at this point in time and in March 2023 we will decide whether we will go for a luxury destination resort or we would got for a more a business hotel. We would also look at doing a mix of corporate as well as luxury resort. We don’t want to brand ourselves under one segment hotel. It would be more corporate and wedding destination hotel. Our Jaipur hotel too is along the same lines. We have a lot of corporate foot prints coming into the hotel. The fact that we are situated next to the Mahindra World City plays a major role.
So going forward, we would be more of a MICE and a wedding destination hotel than of FIT.
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