Interview

Building Loyalty through Enriching Guest Experience!

Vineet Kapoor, Food & Beverage Manager, Welcomhotel Dwarka, New Delhi

Vineet Kapoor leading the F&B team at WelcomHotel Dwarka, is an ambitious and dynamic hospitality professional with a diverse experience, backed by strong leadership skills. He graduated from the prestigious IHM Pusa in the year 2005. He has over 15 years of work experience in Hotels and Restaurants openings and ensuring their financial and operational stability and working with well known brands where he honed skills for a holistic approach towards managing the Food & Beverage Operations. He ensures to provide the guests with the best culinary experiences through innovation and creativity. Prior to working with Welcomhotel Dwarka, he was Food and Beverage manager at Sandal Suites Operated by Lemon Tree Hotels. In a candid conversation with Sharmila Chand, he talks more about himself and his work:

What do you enjoy most about being F&B Head?

Being the custodian of Food and Beverage service, it gives me an opportunity to showcase our rich cultural heritage to the guests by way of our award winning cuisine and service style. The lineage and history of a country is best showcased by the rich food. The profile also gives me the chance to interact with the guests and help in elevating their experience.

What do you dislike the most?

This profession requires lot of hard work and long work hours hence often it is not easy to convince your team mates to sacrifice their personal commitments due to exigencies of work.

What are the challenges in your job?

F&B space is extremely dynamic in nature and the following things make it challenging: • The way you and your staff treat the guests will make or break your business. There is a constant thrust on us to make sure anyone who dines with us should go back with a memorable experience which only comes with personalisation. • Today’s guest is extremely informed and well-traveled and understands quality and the cuisine • The food has to be Insta-worth and yet appealing to the palate. • The loyalty of your guests shifts very frequently and is at times unpredictable. • You have to innovate and think creatively regularly to entice your guest. Just serving good food won’t promise loyalty anymore. • The human touch is actually the Midas Touch which our team has. It’s extremely important to keep them motivated in this materialistic world as Happy employee means Happy guests.

If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?

I wish it was possible to allow every employee to stay/avail the hotel service at least once so that they can get a firsthand experience of the product/service. The same would help them think about the wow’s we can deliver to the guest at every moment of truth.

What kind of pressures have you encountered at work? • Delivering a high EDITDA without compromising on quality. • Delivering consistent service even post attrition. • Often dealing with high tempers amongst two different teams during peak operations. • A successful restaurant or a wellorganised event is as good as playing orchestra where everyone plays an integral role. You often will have to cover your team mate who would have had a bad day at home.

Can you suggest any tips or insights to strengthen your team?

Our work calls for long hours and hard work. New challenges come our way every day so it’s extremely important to know your team’s strength and weaknesses. In F&B it has to be more like an extended family wherein there is respect for even the most junior team mate.

Finally, how is your experience at the present job?

It feels great to be a part of the country’s premier business conglomerate and a leader in the Indian Hospitality space. At ITC Hotels ‘Responsible Luxury’ is manifest in a collection of hotels that mirror the ethos and culture of the destination; through culinary experiences like Kebabs & Kurries.

What are the challenges of working here?

Since it’s a huge hotel, its challenging to meet the quality promise and yet maintaining costs.

What excites you the most here?

Since the hotel is located in a residential hub, so the scope for F&B is immense. The population is young and is looking for experiential dining options. The hotel attracts both inbound and outbound guests. Hence, giving us an opportunity to appraise the foreign nationals with the rich cuisines and ensuring that our domestic travelers relish the regional flavors of India.

What is the USP of your F&B outlets?

Welcomhotel Dwarka offers a broad spectrum of cuisines not only from different regions but also a varied timeline. Shanghai Club bridges the cuisines of the orient and ties them to the first Chinese settlers in the city of joy and delivers the same through Tangra Chinese. Pavilion 75, is not any usual coffee shop fare, rather it offers substantial pie with european classics, the best of Indian fare and Oriental. Kebabs & Kurries the Indian outpost reflects the cuisines stretching beyond our borders. Not just limited to Kebabs, Kebabs & Kurries provides morsels of Quorma and Salans along with breads cooked on charcoal hearths.

What is your take on the hospitality business in general?

With niche hotel brands entering the Indian Sub-Continent, I certainly feel that the hospitality business in India has the potential to grow exponentially both in terms of experience and turnover.

It is imperative to build loyalty for all players through an enhanced customer engagement.