Make India Hospitable Again

Context: Recent steps taken by the Ministry of Tourism and the industry with regards to health and safety, would inspire confidence into the tourism sector, which has been most affected by the pandemic.

COVID as an opportunity to transform the hospitality sector

• Contactless Approach: Contactless check-in to the room, delivery of meals to sanitisation of luggage, every point of the guest journey has been reimagined to address the need of the hour.
• Re-Innovation in the industry: 

• Companies are strengthening the marketplace model of distribution, 
• Enhancing technological offerings,
• Identifying good inventory, 
• Offering standardised experiences for guests 
• Driving the ‘What you see is what you get’ concept of empowering customers to choose what they want. 

• Digitalisation: Digitalisation was considered as a disruptor(due to loss of jobs) in the hospitality industry; however today Online Travel Aggregators (OTAs) have brought a paradigm shift in the travel and tourism ecosystem.

• Online hospitality chains like OYO and OTAs like Goibibo-MakeMyTrip (GO-MMT), have brought a digital transformation that has not only proved tourist-friendly but has also made the traveller more ‘independent.’ 
• Covid-19 has further increased this dependence on digitalisation.

Way Ahead:

• Industry bodies must facilitate and promote small, mid-market and big hotels to adopt all possible measures to deal with COVID disruptions, including innovative pricing and branding, without resisting them.

• Ensure stakeholders involvement: There might be some players in the industry who will take some time to reconcile with the industry-wide structural changes. 

• Therefore it is necessary that all players of the hospitality industry come together, think together and work together for the faster revival of the industry.