Hospitality Biz Growth demands Skilled Manpower

Dilip Puri, Founder & CEO, Indian School of Hospitality (ISH) is the former head of Starwood Hotels & Resorts in India. In an interaction with Realty+, he emphasizes the need for world class hospitality training institutes in India. Puri started his venture ‘Indian School of Hospitality (ISH)’ with an aim to disrupt the hospitality education space. “I always wanted to get in the education space, but being busy with the corporate career it just remained an idea, the initial idea for starting with a world class hospitality school was seeded in my mind when I admitted my younger son to Ecolehoteliere de Lausanne in 2013. It was then that I realised in India, we have hotels that are known around the world and a rapidly growing service industry, but we do not have a matching standard of hospitality education. Spotting the gap, I decided to venture into crafting a world-class hospitality education enterprise,” he stated.   How Indian hospitality is coming of age in India? Hospitality in India is coming of age and the proof of it is that the largest hospitality company in India today is Marriott. For 100 of years it was TAJ Group but now the gears have shifted. So the fact that there are more international brands operating in Indian hospitality sector rather than Indian brands is a great indicator that the sector is maturing, another big happening is that it is not any more about luxury hospitality but even the mid segment hotel chains are coming up in a big manner in India, that caters to domestic leisure travel market. The industry is on a growth trajectory and is looking ahead to a very bright future. We have just gone through a very bad phase, which started post-recession after 2008 but 2017 onward industry is witnessing an upward trend. The industry has changed very fast, with the changing demographics of customers, the technology aspect in the hospitality business has also changed, so has the way this business is run but the quality of education remains, what it was a decade or two back. As a result, the students are not job ready. The very idea of creating ISH was to nurture the future talent for the hospitality sector so that when they enter the industry they can seamlessly merge with the nuances of the hospitality business. Hospitality assets still have the best capital appreciation amongst all the other asset classes, and to manage these hotels smartly and efficiently, you will need smart people and that is the precise reason why we don’t just need world class hotels in India but also world class hospitality institutes to nurture the industry ready talent of tomorrow.   What differentiates ISH from other Hospitality Schools? ISH campus combines technology with high-end design, providing students of ISH an environment that enables academic discovery while providing spaces for testing hands-on skills. ISH has the academic certification of Ecolehoteliere de Lausanne. We also have a strong academic connect with the industry and have a mentorship programme for the students, alongside regular lectures from internationally-renowned experts and industry veterans. The campus stimulates the hotel environment such as hotel lobby, kitchen, cafeteria and rooms which give the feel of working in a hotel. My philosophy has always been to provide my students with an environment similar to their work atmosphere, so that when they get in the job they don’t get intimidated but are comfortable in their working environment.   Future of Hospitality sector in India There is more institutional capital and private equity capital coming in India. The PE investors getting in the hospitality sector or purchasing the existing hotels manage the assets more smartly. Developers are now building hotels as part of the mixed use development, thereby spreading the risk as standalone hotels have long gestational period. Hotels are now offering commercial and office spaces, as also investing in banquets and meeting spaces for good returns. In the future we will also witness lot of retail in hotels.