Abhishek Sahai, general manager, Conrad Pune.As a city, Pune has clearly come out of the shadows of Mumbai and established itself as a sprawling industrial town and IT hub over the last decade and a half. There is a robust automobile, IT and start-up ecosystem which have catapulted the city into an economic power house. Foreseeing the emerging opportunities and demand for quality hospitality services in the rapidly evolving city, real estate companies like K Raheja Group have invested in big box hotels in the very heart of the city in the early part of the last decade. Although those investments were perceived to be ahead of the market curve in the initial years, the demand caught up more quickly than expected.“We are a large luxury hotel with 351 ultra luxury rooms in the heart of the city and have an enviable location. Demand is only increasing and so is the supply in the city,” said Abhishek Sahai, general manager of the Conrad Pune. His hotel has been built with a futuristic vision, Sahai observed, citing the world-class infrastructure in terms of the F&B, banqueting facilities, etc. “We have a fabulous F&B offering spread across seven outlets, something the city of Pune’s stature aspires to. Each outlet is unique in its own way,” he said. The hotel has over 20,000 square feet of event space making it one of the sought after event destinations for corporates as well as social events like weddings in the city, he said. “The culture of personalised services helps us deliver really memorable events,” he informed.While the city has seen big transformation from a satellite city of Mumbai to a sprawling city with its own strong independent identity, Sahai feels that there are still certain gaps in terms of connectivity, infrastructure, etc. to be filled for the city to really make it big as Bengaluru or Hyderabad. On the connectivity front, Pune is not directly connected to international cities. Air connectivity is still domestic, he said. The city also lacks a big convention facility. The city’s physical infrastructure in terms of city roads, local transport, etc. doesn’t justify the position that the city is aspiring to be, Sahai said. “We constantly highlight these issues in our meetings with the local administration and policy-makers. If these issues are addressed, we will have more evolved and polished travellers coming into the city,” he said. The Conrad Pune which is completing nine years of operation.On the business side, the Pune hospitality market, like any other location in India, has bounced back quite well from the pandemic shock on the back of domestic travel. “We are already back to 2019 numbers. Business remained strong despite the geopolitical uncertainties in the global market,” Sahai said. As a luxury hospitality, Sahai said that the focus is to constantly innovate and improve on the service offerings to stay ahead of the market competition. “We have just concluded a 2-day gastronomic event by Nadodi Kuala Lumpur. We also had a bar takeover by Rabbit Hole Thailand recently in one of our bars,” he said. With expectations of overall improvement in the geopolitical scenario in at least some parts of the world in the New Year, Sahai believes that the demand can only “zoom ahead” for the city hotels.He also expects some of the current constraints in terms of infrastructure and other things also to be addressed so that the hospitality industry in the city can really flourish and prosper. “When that happens as one of the biggest and the first luxury hotels, we are well set to grab the largest share of that incremental demand,” he stated.
Published On Dec 19, 2024 at 11:00 AM IST
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