Introduction
Signum Hotels and Resorts is a beacon of elegance and a treasure trove of the most modern amenities and comfortable facilities comprising of 12 properties across India along with 22 service apartments in London. Their properties, which speak for themselves with their style and architecture, are conveniently close to business districts and are well connected to airports and other means of transportation catering to all needs of tourists competently.
The group is focused and determined to be the best choice of the large scale, as well as medium-scale investors and developers, by providing authentic experiences set in a background of comfortable and hidden luxury. It wants to be known as an amalgamation of great product with high-end service and local engrossment. Thus, it works on merging authentic experiences and designs along with strong brand standards providing outstanding service and leaving customers with a smile on their face.
The properties of Signum Hotels and Resorts include Camp Wild Dhauj, Hotel Marigold, Kot Dunara, Woodville Palace, Ferndale Apartments, Lexington Apartments, Alder House, Cygnet House, Kennet House, Heatthrow Living and Laxmi Niwas.
Founding team
Founder & CEO
Signum Hotels and Resorts
The team at Signum Hotels and Resorts comprise hoteliers with a combined experience of more than 650 years of in the hotel industry. They have an expertise in head to toe management of hotels. One can enjoy their potent services crafted by the handpicked personnel from Taj, Park Hotels, Shangri’la and ITC Hotels.
Introducing the founding team, Mehul Sharma, Founder & CEO of Signum Hotels and Resorts who has worked in senior leadership positions with TAJ, ITC, Park Hotels & Shangri’la says that they have a diligent and result oriented team which forms the biggest asset of their organization.
The founding team members are:
Hema Dhoke – VP Business Development, Neena Gulati – Director Spa & Wellness, Sanjukta Sangiri – Corporate HR manager, Amitabh Chowdhary – Director Culinary, Kaushik Das – GM Operations & Quality, Rita Chowdhary – Housekeeping, Riaz Ahmend – Finance and Sakshi Arora – GM Marketing & Nutritionist.
Business Model and USP
Signum Hotels and Resorts is a leading hotel company that aims to curate plush hotels with local and community design inspiration along with authentic experiences while unravelling newer corners of the world that aren’t privy to commercialization. They offer a huge array of services to cater to all kinds of guests both tourists and business travellers. Some of these include:
HOTELS ON REVENUE SHARE
With the evolving times, it’s mandatory to keep updating constantly. Signum Hotels and Resorts is open to the modern and innovative revenue sharing model of the hospitality industry.
FRANCHISE SERVICES
With decades of experience in the hospitality domain, Signum Hotels and Resorts offer a plethora of efficient consultancy services related to the hospitality industry.
HOTELS ON MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT
In tune with the dynamic hospitality industry trends, they also sign hotel management contracts and ensure to earn profits.
QUICK AND SECURE EARNING
For reaping the maximum benefits of the innovative and modern revenue share model, interested and potential investors can join hands with them. They believe that together with their investors, they can reach new heights that others fear to explore.
KEY BENEFITS OF PARTNERING WITH THEM
Signum provides efficient services in the domain of operations audit, technical review, financial review, HLP audit, cost benefit analysis and social media management solutions.
RELIABLE AND PROFITABLE CONTRACTS
They provide efficient services in the domain of operations audit, technical review, financial review, HLP audit, cost benefit analysis and social media management solutions.
The company leaves a signatory mark with creative and novel hotels and resorts. Their key attributes are AI-driven services like Food App, Mobile App, Signum Training Academy & Loyalty Programme.
All this will lead to:
- Conversational AI
- Intelligent Process Automation(IPA)
- Increase Direct Bookings
- Instantaneous Responses
- Reduce Labour Costs Upto 10-15%
- Increase Staff Efficiency
- Reduce Customer Wait Times
- Increase Upselling and Cross Selling
- Increase Sales and Marketing Productivity
- Increase Guest Satisfaction and NPS
- Increase Loyalty
Genesis
“My aim is to add 5 hotels in a month”, says Mehul Sharma as he always wanted to build his own brand and reciprocate the services to the people. “I do carry with me the DNA of hospitality”, hence he believes to spread the brand across the globe.
The Journey So Far
“During the early phase, our focus was to work on back end technology, getting new hotels to sign up and making a team” shares Mehul Sharma.
He believes that their journey has been great so far as the brand currently has 12 hotels, 18 serviced apartments, with 40% of GOP. They have received very good response from the market and the team who served as a backbone. Also, it has been able to pick up the best practices of all the leading brands and customize it to create a better customer experience.
Business in Post Covid-19 World
The team at Signum believes that new tourism is coming up, new sectors, international properties are coming our way. “Currently the focus remains on the current market itself. However the previous hotel scenario situation will heal soon”, explains Sakshi Arora, GM- Marketing & Nutritionist.
Challenges
If we look at the current scenario, due to the restrictions on inter-state movement, revenue generation is a very tedious task and the leisure & hospitality sector has seen the largest net decline in payrolls amid the COVID outbreak i.e. (-7,653,000).
The hotel occupancy rates had a sharp decline of 28% that is from 66% in 2019 to 38% in 2020. Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Around 75% of them were small traders and wage-laborers.
Preliminary findings also indicate that a large proportion of restaurant customers (64.71%) and the majority of hotel customers (70.42%) believe that the use of various technologies in service delivery will be necessary in the COVID-19 environment in order to minimize human-to-human contact (examples: service robots, contactless payment such as Apply pay or contactless bank cards, digital menus that can be viewed on personal mobile devices via QR codes, contactless digital payments, keyless entry, touchless elevators, etc.) .
Foreign tourist arrivals in India have dropped from 1,103,380 in January 2019 to 1,015,632 in January 2020.
These findings strongly suggest that technology integration and adoption into hospitality operations will likely be integral in the near future.
Government’s Support
The Indian Government has realised the country’s potential in the tourism industry and has taken several steps to make India a global tourism hub.
Some of the major initiatives planned by the Government of India to boost the tourism and hospitality sector of India are as follows:
- Ministry of Tourism launched DekhoApnaDesh webinar series to provide information on many destinations and sheer depth and expanse on the culture and heritage of India.
- Ministry of Tourism launched Audio Guide facility App called Audio Odigos for 12 sites in India (including iconic sites).
- Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi urged people to visit 15 domestic tourist destinations in
India by 2022. - Statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, also known as ‘Statue of Unity’, was inaugurated in October 2018. It is the highest standing statue in the world at a height of 182 metre. It is expected to boost the tourism sector in the country and put it on the world tourism map.
- Government of India is working to achieve one per cent share in world’s international tourist arrivals by 2020 and 2 per cent share by 2025.
- Under Budget 2020-21, the Government of India has allotted Rs 1,200 crore (US$ 171.70 million) for development of tourist circuits under Swadesh Darshan for eight Northeast states.
- Under Budget 2020-21, the Government of India has allotted Rs 207.55 crore (US$ 29.70 million) for development of tourist circuits under PRASHAD scheme.
- In 2019, Government reduced GST on hotel rooms with tariffs of Rs 1,001 (US$ 14.32) to Rs 7,500 (US$ 107.31) per night to 12 per cent and those above Rs 7,501 (US$ 107.32) to 18 per cent to increase India’s competitiveness as a tourism destination.
- In September 2019, Japan joined a band of Asian countries, including Taiwan and Korea among others, to enter India’s tourism market.
Future Plans
Signum’s focus as a brand will continue to provide significant experiences and impact on the in-design architecture. The brand has huge expansion plans for the near future as it aims to mark its presence in more prime and offbeat destinations across the country. Sharing more details about the company’s future plans, Ms. Sakshi Arora, GM- Marketing & Nutritionist says, “We will be having 100 hotels in next 3 to 5 years”.
Fight Against COVID-19
During present situation, Signum Hotels & Resorts continues to be bullish on the upcoming domestic demand. Due to the fact that in post-COVID scenario, hospitality will require less congested venues, more manageable properties and iconic drivable destinations, the brand believes its hotels are perfectly poised to benefit from the coming uptake in domestic travel.
With clear SOPs and unique COVID-19 safety assurance practices, the company has invested its time in the last two months to adapt, create and fortify its operations to offer a contactless, more hygienic, and incredibly sanitized experience.
All precautions and norms are being followed by Signum as per the WHO, CDC and local health authorities by upgrading the cleaning and sanitization protocols. Medical checks for the staff are being carried out, advanced technology is being properly implemented in the day-to-day operations and social distancing norms are being incorporated. A new vendor’s policy is also being implemented by the company to ensure stringent measures in terms of health, safety and security. “The safety of our team is as is important as the guests, and we have ensured that they will be provided with masks and gloves and other necessary personal protective equipment,” states Mehul Sharma.
The Signum – Post Covid 19 Recovery SOP –
- Personal Protective Equipment to be worn
- Hygiene kits to be provided {sanitizers, tissue papers, masks} at all interaction points for guests and associates to use.
- Hands to be sanitized or washed frequently, especially after contact with surfaces which haven’t been disinfected.
- Social distancing norms to be followed
- No cluster seating across the hotel
- All exchanges between guests and associates will be followed by disinfection and sanitization {pens, bill folders, menu cards, key cards, luggage handling, photo identification, cash transactions etc.}
- All guests will be greeted respectfully saying Namaste/Aadab/Khamagani (at Palaces) only with folded hands.
- Everyone is a housekeeper 24 hrs, 7 days a week. Associates will disinfect their own workspace every 45 minutes.
Motivational Message
Mehul Sharma, Founder & CEO of Signum Hotels and Resorts is a self-motivated person. With his team, he believes that he can survive each storm. He sees every opportunity in this crises. All this keeps him motivated.
At the end, Mehul Sharma has a short yet motivational message for budding entrepreneurs and young generation. “Work hard, work strong, have a vision, be self-motivated,” he concludes.
Hope this success story would motivate all the aspiring entrepreneurs. It is a part of our startup profiling feature story/interview series. We are on a mission to put forth the inspirational journey of successful entrepreneurs in order to spread some motivation during these tough times.
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