THE ALCHEMIST OF HOSPITALITY

Puneet Chhatwal, the CEO and MD of Tata Group’s hospitality arm Indian Hotels Company, talks about how his company is reimagining and repositioning some of its most renowned brands, raising the hospitality bar, with an eye on the evolving customer and emerging concepts and trends

- PRIYANCA VAISHNAV

Through the '60s, Puneet Chhatwal spent his growing years admiring the inspiring edifices of the Indian Hotels Group rise on the Delhi skyline. For Chhatwal, therefore, assuming the position of CEO and MD of Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) seems to have been par for the course. It is not surprising that Chhatwal came to be selected for the position out of five external candidates and other Tata Group alumni and existing senior executives.

An alumnus of the Institute of Hotel Management, Delhi, an MBA in Hospitality from ESSEC, Paris, and an Advanced Management Programme from INSEAD later, Chhatwal went on to occupy positions of leadership at various European and North American hotel groups. He was Chief Development Officer of The Rezidor Hotel Group —Carlson Hotels Worldwide, and CEO and Member of the Executive Board of Steigenberger Hotels AG — Deutsche Hospitality, before being appointed to his current role.

After his last stint in a market like Germany, where professionalism and guest standards are exacting, what lured the HSMAI European Awards 2014 winner and the First Alumni to be included in the ESSEC-IMHI Hall of Honor 2014 back to his country of origin? Chhatwal’s cognisance of the brand, his humility and emotional connect to India is plain as day in his response. “The Tata Group is a renowned global conglomerate and a values-driven organisation. Right from when I started my career 36 years back, Indian Hotels was a prominent name in the industry in general and Taj has a very strong brand equity and customer connect in particular. It is an honour to be associated with such an iconic brand and India’s most trusted entity. It is also good to be closer to family.”

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