Changing trends in Indian hospitality industry in the post covid world

Abstract

India’s hotel industry employs an enormous number of people and contributes immensely to the India’s GDP. The luxury hotel industry has been going through a tremendous amount of transition due to new players such as Airbnb and Oyo. Hotels have had to transform their businesses using digital tools to stay competitive and provide distinguished services to customers. When the covid pandemic struck and lockdown restrictions were announced across the country, as expected, the hotel industry became one of the worst hit industries. Many jobs were lost, revenues drastically fell, and occupancy rates were at an all-time low. In order for the hotels in the industry to recover from this massive blow and stay abreast, they have had to devise innovative strategies. On this account, reimagining the customer journey across the entire hotel booking scenario was the first step to understand the changing customer behaviours and attitudes. Owing to these changes, hotels need to rethink their strategies that involve venturing into new avenues and markets, partnering with several ecosystem players, changing business models to accommodate changing expectations, optimizing usage of assets and resources, offering novel and unconventional packages to cater to changing needs, enhancing loyalty programs, and capitalizing on some well-known trends. Having said that, most of these changes are not easy and hotels need sufficient talent and manpower to execute these changes effectively. They would also need to leverage digital capabilities to ensure that they are able to stay competitive by providing customer centric and distinguishing services.