Technology vital post COVID

The recent DDP Digital Conclave titled ‘The Post Pandemic Reset’ focused on hospitality and how technology would play a major role in a reset for the post-COVID world.

- Nisha Verma

While COVID brought sustaining businesses to the fore, hospitality companies had to rejig their strategies to sail through the pandemic. For Abinash Manghani, CEO, WelcomHeritage, the central focus is to stay afloat. “You must survive this entire episode and as business owners or CEO, the most important metric is the cash flow of the organisation, even though generating profits is not possible. The most important question that customers ask us since phase-I of the pandemic is regarding safety. Travel is now flexible, and we enable that to happen,” he said. Speaking about the scenario with restaurants, Vineet Wadhwa, Chairman and Managing Director, Fio Restaurants, said, “All this time the industry was glued on the top line or the bottom line as the main game. The pandemic has taught us to look at the stuff in between in detail. After the first lockdown, in October we saw a very slow rise and hit about 80 per cent of our revenues by March, until COVID hit us again. Surprisingly, in July we are seeing figures that resemble that of March. We downsized, came out with limited venues and staffing, and the revenues were depleted. The revival happened with ingenuity, ideas and concepts of luring the diner and the experience of the outlet. Now, looking at July figures, I can say that we should be stepping into the thriving phase since competition has gone a little controlled and the survivors are seeing the chapter of March returning.” Saying that the pandemic and viral attacks are going tobe a way of life forward,