GM SPEAKS

RAHUL KANUNGO

HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY WAS NOT ON MY BUCKET LIST, BUT IT HAPPENED!

B y R a j e s h G h a d g e I m a g e s b y F E R N B e l a g a v i

The Hotel Management graduate from (IHMCTAN) Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Applied Nutrition Rahul belongs to a small town in West Bengal. While he wanted to become an engineer just like his dad, his aunt guided him into the hospitality industry that he never dreamt of becoming the part of it. FNH team connected with Mr Rahul to find out more about his journey.

Tell us something about your early days and how you got into this field. I belong to a small town in West Bengal and i am also a part of the society where parents have only aim that their kids would become a Doctor or Engineer. Since my Dad was in TISCO, I was influenced by the colonial life and the privileges the Engineers / Managers used to enjoy in those days, including large bungalows with beautiful Gardens, and other Perks and facilities. Actually I wanted to become an Engineer and I had gone to appear for an entrance exam in IIT but my Aunt drew my attention to the advertisement in the TOI for the entrance of the IIHMCTAN and that changed my whole life. What do you think is your greatest strength and what is your biggest weakness? My greatest strength is my interpersonal relationship with all the stake holders and collogues. I always try to maintain a pure and spontaneous relationship with the Guests, Owners, Senior Management Team, and Vendors. I also believe strongly in the eye for the details and delivering the highest quality of service to our Guests. I always try to understand the market and trends and with sincere anticipations, move towards meeting all the verticals of the Balance score cards. As far as the weakness is concerned, sometime I am not being able to control my emotions specially in the situations where the Guests are not happy with any of our services or products, where the same was anticipated much before and also happened due to the sheer carelessness . As a Leader , how do you cope with Bad business Days and keep your team motivated? Fortunately we have not seen the bad days at

any point of time. My earlier stints with the Royal Orchid hotels or Keys Hotels or the Radisson and the present property we have always been blessed with the good top line and bottom line. I always adopted a strong shop floor approach and get connected to the business closely and also a strong focus on the expenses always helped to maintain a good GOP though I was always averse to the idea of pushed GOP compromising on the Guest or staff facilities. I guess the biggest challenge for any Hotelier was the pandemic however we adopted a very strong and aggressive approach during the Covid and I am also thankful to a like minded team who always supported my initiatives whole heartedly. Even during the Covid, we adopted numerous initiatives like Home delivery, food festival for the home delivery menu, Food by kilos, Party menus , allocating the complete floor for the group movements, dish of the Day and numerous initiatives which actually helped us to maintain a positive bottom line even during the Covid and I am sincerely thankful to the Team who completely supported in all the initiatives . I guess one need to lead from the front to motivate the Team. During Corvid every team member was apprehensive about the outcome of the disease however some of the senior member and a selected few also accompanied me to the office and we had a very frugal meal for all the staff members during that period and we all shared the same food to make the team understand that we all stand together through the thick and thin and to balance the business we had to bear the pay cut and we ensured that the junior staffs were paid before the senior Management Team. We also had a great support from the Ownership and Senior Management Team to tide over this trying time. I guess this helped us to retain the staff strength post covid era and we could see the surge in the business during this period, I am glad that we did not lose any of our colleagues due to the Covid . What are the key USP of Fern Belagavi as a hotel and how have you nurtured the unique traits? USP of the UK 27 the Fern Belagavi is numerous which includes, Location : we are located in the heart of the City. Luxurious rooms : Basic room starts from 350 sft and guest up to 1000 sft Suites. F&B : with multiple F&B outlets serving great food accompanied by the impeccable service. People : we strongly believe in the age old concept and our team members go the extra mile to make our guests happy. Process: The strong focus on the process implementation driven by the dynamic SOP. Do you position yourself as a budget luxury Hotel or business class budget Hotel? UK 27 the Fern Belagavi is an affordable luxury hotel having Spacious rooms clubbed with choice of F&B outlets which includes A Specialty Pan Asian Restaurant – Yaki, An allday Dining Restaurant serving world cuisine. A beautiful 125 Covers Lounge Bar at the 9th floor offering a breath taking view of the City and serving an wide varieties of Beverages and food. Besides the F&B out lets we also offer two beautifully decorated Banquet Halls , Meeting room and state of the art Board room and the Disco which is operated on the weekends and the world renowned DJs played in the pre covid era. How do you think Goa ’ s tourism industry helps the business flowing to Belagavi and what are the plans you have to promote your business in Goa

Goa being a popular destination in the world has a good tourist flow from domestic and International and there are good numbers of Domestic travelers do travel to Goa by road from the Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and other cities like Hyderabad, Kolhapur, Satara, Karad etc. We are seeing positive trends of the domestic travelers using our F&B and occasionally rooms also. Resident of Goa are also very frequent to Belagavi as they do come for shopping and also to take a break specially when the Goa is full of Tourists. Sine we have a good presence in Goa , we will take advantage of the same and promote our properties through various mode like Lobby stande , Tent cards in the rooms and also approach the Tour operators in the various strategic locations . What are the Hotels apart from Fern Belagavi do you personally appreciate ? Since I had a long association with the Taj, my favorites includes Taj Coromandel, Taj Vizag, Taj Madurai, Taj Benares and also I was instrumental in the complete revamp of the Dukes Retreat at Khandala for which I always have a very soft corner. I was also the preopening GM for Radisson Salem and it was literally seeing the hotel getting into the shape from the empty shell. What are the events / activities are you planning for the season to keep fern Belagavi always buzzing with the Guests ?? UK 27 The fern Belagavi is always a very active and buzzing hotel. Our F&B outlets are quite busy and also our Banquets. We also get international and national level artists for the

Club and we have the list of top DJs like Nikhil Chinnapa played at UK 27 The Fern Belagavi. We also plans of doing the activities like Food festivals, Promotions and Celebrity artists playing at the Fern Belagavi. We are also offering the various Packages targeting the Social events. especially the weddings which is a big source of business for any hotels and we have beautiful Lawns which can cater for such events. How much do you think Social media and influencers and Media help in spreading the word for business these days?? In today ’ s world the Social Media has a big role to play in doing business. Social media has a wider reach and with affordable cost factors. Influencers are also encouraged to experience the Hotels services especially for the Rooms, Food promos / festivals etc. where they can cover and a focused clientele for any particular services. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?? Concept Hospitality is one of the fastest growing Hotel chain and already has 90 properties in 75 locations across the country and the world. With this rate, we can surely hope double the number if not more in the next 5 years. The Fern Belagavi with the future plans will surely retain the position of the market leader in the region with its unmatched product and services and we will continue to win over the loyalty of our Guests.