Hotelier India - July 2019

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The cover story of Hotelier India’s July edition features a man who, we believe, is a visionary. The brand he set up 15 years ago is today a marquee brand, which has created new benchmarks in the mid-scale segment. Along the way, besides setting new standards in hospitality, he has also created a new paradigm by which he hires people. Lemon Tree is known to hire people with disabilities. It is not something he does because it is politically correct; it is more about belief than about appearing to do the right thing where Patu is concerned. Even as the hospitality industry bemoans the fact that there is lack of skilled manpower, he creates a new definition of what skilled and unskilled means in the hospitality industry. Even as the industry clam¬ours for industry status, he focuses on landing debt on better terms or scouting for land that doesn’t cost an arm or a leg, constantly keeping economics in sight. Also within the pages of this edi¬tion is our article on adaptive reuse, or how atmospheric palaces, man¬sions, havelis and colonial homes are being conserved by turning them into hotels. It is a win-win situation: the owners of these her¬itage properties have enough funds to restore and maintain them. While we have all our regular fea¬tures, the one thing that has taken centre-stage in the minds of most Indians, is the water crisis we are facing. As we encounter climate change, water is one commodity that is likely to become more precious. But we can come up with solutions. Our design feature focuses on how hotel de¬signers, and hoteliers, can conserve water in a space where it is used the most — bathrooms, which account for 40% of water usage in hotels. Niranjan Khatri, the ex-ITC man, pens a column on creative solutions we can come up with to deal with this crisis. With this and lot more in the edition in terms of new product launches, news and views to keep you interested.