How severely were the Lemon Tree Hotels in India affected during the Pandemic?
Lemon Tree Hotels has kept a substantial number of hotels operational over the last 6 months, and welcomed a large number of quarantine guests returning under the Vande Bharat Mission as well as some individual travellers who booked through the website or online travel agents. Hotels have been running with reduced teams on account of mobility constraints (during the lockdown), and a tactical plan to keep a team of employees on the premises itself and minimize exposure to the virus (if they were to travel to and fro every day). We implemented a number of cost saving initiatives, both fixed and variable, which led to a positive Gross Operating Profit (at an operational level).
Have the Lemon Tree properties opened across India?
Lemon Tree has strictly followed the guidelines of state and central governments while keeping its hotels operational or temporarily closing them, as required. The impact of COVID-19 on hotel business has been felt a little more strongly in Tier 2 & 3 cities. As mentioned, a substantial number of hotels have been kept open through these months.
As people are now beginning to slowly start traveling, with a preference to drive to a nearby location in their own vehicle – Lemon Tree Hotels has launched ‘Trippin’ with Lemon Tree’ where the guests can do pre-defined driving routes with family or friends. Our hotels can be booked for transit stays and/or at the final destination. With Lemon Tree’s great locations, ‘Rest Assured’ sanitization program and value-for-money packages, guests can chose from 79 hotels in 47 destinations across India.
What kind of concerns are you facing from the customers who are engaging with you for bookings?
This pandemic has helped people understand the importance of health and safety measures that hotel companies have to take to safeguard their guests. Most of our customers enquire about our sanitization and cleanliness measures, social distancing, food safety and other norms, before they finalise their reservation with us.
This is where our new hygiene initiative ‘Rest Assured’, in partnership with Diversey, comes into play. The cleaning and sanitization standards of this program ensure the health and safety of our guests and team members. The new ‘House Rules’ help customers understand what to expect from our hotels as well as what they must do to ensure their safety e.g. masks, maintaining social distancing, washing/sanitizing their hands, etc.
For our restaurants, we have made the ordering and payment process contactless with the QRestro app. This allows guests to scan a QR code and access the entire menu of the coffee shop/In Room Dining and select the items they want to order. Our team reconfirms the order with the guest on the phone and delivers it hygienically in the defined time. Once the guest has finished his meal he can pay online with the link sent to their phone. Our guests feel more reassured with this process being made contactless.
Has your Hotel Chain come out with a special package to attract more traffic?
Most hotel companies are focusing on the domestic market which is expected to be the first to recover. International travel will take a few months to restart and stabilize. Lemon Tree Hotels has several offers available at this time including day use accommodation (work area with high speed Wi-Fi, meal offers); seclusion packages at our hotels within an easy driving distance; the ‘Godzilla Sale’ where guests can book at highly discounted rates for a future date; Lemon Tree Vouchers in values of Rs.1000 to Rs.5000 – these can be used personally or gifted, Trippin’ With Lemon Tree, etc.
When do you see the Hotel industry in India going back to normalcy? How much time, in your opinion, will things take to settle down?
Our estimate is that the hospitality sector will take another one and half to two years to stabilize and go back to pre-COVID growth levels. In the interim, hotel companies must pursue and develop new market segments, as demand evolves. This includes quarantine requirements, healthcare segment, MSME business travel and small conferences. In the leisure segment, we expect people to take short driving holidays and we are developing packages for all our hotels at such locations. Hygiene and cleanliness will continue to be of prime focus over the next few years.
What Special Precautions has your hospitality ground undertaken regarding the safety of its employees and guests?
At all our hotels we are maintaining best-in-class hygiene standards, as per our ‘Rest Assured’ initiative in partnership with Diversey – a global leader in the space of cleanliness and hygiene standards. This program creates an environment focused on health, hygiene, safety and wellbeing of people. The safety and wellbeing of our guests and team members is of the utmost importance to us, and we want everyone to be rest assured that they are in safe hands. As mentioned above, under this initiative Lemon Tree has also executed a new set of ‘House Rules’ to be followed by guests, visitors and team members to maximize safety and hygiene.
Is there any more information that you would like to share with us?
As part of our sustainability initiatives, during the pandemic we have carefully managed our power consumption, enhanced our renewable energy consumption and driven the water recycling and reuse efforts.
From an HR perspective, there has been no compromise with the health and safety of our employees i.e. masks, gloves, personal protective equipment, temperature checks, etc. Our Employees with Disability continue to work in our hotel teams, to the extent possible. This depends on lockdown conditions, mobility and vulnerability (of some disability types) to the virus.
The leadership team has engaged with teams at all hotels on a regular basis both online and offline to motivate them and ensure their physical and mental health is taken care of. Training sessions have been conducted continuously to keep all employees up to date with the revised SOPs and guest’s interaction processes. During this difficult time we have seen our team members turn into heroes and they have shown up at work every day despite the risk.
