Winter Internship @ TAJ FALAKNUMA PALACE
- by Priyadarshi Mayank (MBA 1st year)
Hospitality industry is an
industry which has its own working style and is very unique in its own. This
winter I got a tremendous opportunity to work for TAJ Falaknuma Palace, a hotel
of Taj Hotels and Resorts group which comes under IHCL(Indian Hotel Companies
Limited). Falaknuma Palace is located in
the culturally rich southern Indian city of Hyderabad. The Palace was built in
1893, and it is spread over 32 acres. It took NawabVikar-ul-Umra, the then
Prime Minister of Hyderabad princely kingdom, nine years to build the Palace.
It was later bought over by the ruler of the Hyderabad state, H.H. TheNizam VI,
Nawab Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Bahadur, who was recognized as the world richest man
in 1930’s.
Taj Falaknuma Palace being a heritage hotel situated in outskirt of
city has less scope for business unlike other business hotels which exists in
heart of the city. Hence in order to increase the business of the hotel I
worked on a project headed by Mr. Girish Sehgal (General Manager of Taj
Falaknuma Palace). The hotel is very costly as its room rates varies between
Rs.32,000 to 1,50,000 per night and most of the guests are foreign nationals or
tourists. So in order to increase the business we worked on the concept of
Destination Marketing Management.
After doing a lot of market research and going
through many research papers we found that the concept of DDM led to drastic
changes in places and made them hot tourist spots. Some of the very well known
examples are Australia, Brazil, Spain, Dubai, Hong Kong, Kerala etc. Hence we
extracted those concepts, modified it and implemented on Hotel Level since DDM
is a broad concept which needs involvement of government, Other Legal bodies,
Tours and Travels Companies etc. I was asked to choose a management model to
implement strategies. I chose Mc Kinsey 7S Model and implemented 7S in
following manner:
·
Strategy
Firstly, starting with the state
of Andhra Pradesh tourism, and then focusing on Hyderabad and Taj Falaknuma
Palace, comparing it to opportunities that exist in this region when compared
to the other successfully branded and marketed destinations in India, as listed
above.
At state level it should do the following things:
- Should take initiative for the formation of other tourism organizations to further boost Andhra Pradesh Tourism.
- Should involve in continuous Tourism Product Development in order to make variety of world-class tourist attractions.
- It should identify the rich culture and crafts of Hyderabad, and help motivate the craftsmen to keep their art alive.
- It should work with the identified craftsmen and help them showcase their unique art, to affluent high end traveler looking for unique experiences, and use these experiences to help market Hyderabad and Taj Falaknuma Palace as a attractive high end leisure destination, thus helping improve both the guest experience and the profitability of the property.
- It should organize variety of annual festivals and cultural events backed up by outstanding tourism campaigns and promotions.
·
Structure
Revamping the organizational
structure in order to boost internal as well as external stakeholders. It
involves providing and maintaining of profitable and healthy relationship with
other stakeholders like Andhra Pradesh
Tourism, Government, Tour and Travel Companies, Associates, Customers
Etc. Adding to that structure
should also facilitate quality service controls which comprises of every effort
to enhance the service quality of facilities and a generally hospitable
atmosphere. These measures are meant to reinforce Hotel’s image as a leading
destination that offers world-class standards of quality, service, and
hospitality.
·
Staff
The recruitment process should
be capable enough to hire the cream associates from institutions and
industries. HR initiatives should focus on further enhancing the engagement
within the workforce, sustaining workforce cost & productivity and enabling
a responsive system to the business challenges through optimized use of
technology platforms.
·
Shared Values
Business excellence should be embedded
in Taj Falaknuma Palace through processes and methodologies that enable it to
continually improve operations and achieve the world-class marquee.
·
Style
IHCL believes Corporate
Governance is a continuous journey to provide a congenial environment to
harmonize the goals of maximizing the stakeholders' value and maintaining a
customer-centric focus.
The internal audit process, through its unique ‘Taj
Positive Assurance Model’, which is an objective methodology of providing a
positive assurance based on the audits of operating units and corporate
functions, is a convergence of Process Framework, Risk and Control Matrix and a
Scoring Matrix.
·
Skill
The Hotel should promote branding,
positioning, communication and hospitality skills. It should also focus on
continuous associate development through various workshops and trainings.
·
System
It involves the development in
daily activities and procedures that staff members engage in to get the job
done. Adding to that hotel should voluntarily participate in the globally
recognized Carbon Disclosure Project to demonstrate its commitment towards
performance in climate change mitigation. It should also organize CSR
activities on a regular basis.
The outcome was phenomenal. Moreover
I solely designed the quarterly newsletter for TAJ Falaknuma Palace. The
feedback I got from GM was ’the newsletter is too good that we won’t be needing any alterations for next five
years’. General Manager was very esteemed by the idea and commitment I poured
into my work. Hence, in the end I would like to say to all of us that don’t
leave any stone unturned in order to achieve your goals.
DOMS, IIT Roorkee Rocks!!
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