Over the years the role of hotels has evolved exponentially, from being a roof over a travellers head to a home away from home for businessmen, a luxury experience for FITs, a promise of quality for discerning travellers, and, increasingly of late, a popular venue for stylish weddings. Hotels are leaving no stone unturned to woo and cater to the wedding segments’ every whim and fancy to make their special day perfect.
According to Ashish Rajput, Director of Sales, Courtyard by Marriott, Gurgaon, the property has a dedicated team to facilitate the wedding needs of our guests. A sales person is specially deployed to look in to the wedding segment of our catering business. In addition, they have a tie up with wedding planners in order to meet the requirements for grand wedding events. Similarly, Fairmont Jaipur has dedicated wedding planners to assist in customising the wedding, whether it is the overall theme and/or decor, seating arrangements, cuisine or activities.
The Leela Kovalam too has a dedicated Sales Account Manager exclusively assisting with the planning. “A dedicated Food and Beverage Executive and Chef are assigned to the wedding party through their stay. The wedding party is also provided with exclusive venues for each of their events,” said N. C. Somaiah, General Manager, The Leela Kovalam.
Highlighting Fairmont Jaipur’s dedication to the segment, Atul Lall, General Manager, Fairmont Jaipur said, “We have a dedicated sales person to look in to the wedding segment of our catering business and a committed event manager who is wedding certified and has got the essential expertise to plan and execute the entire ceremony. We also have a tie up with wedding planners in order to meet the requirements for grand wedding events.”
Taking the importance of catering to the wedding segment a notch higher, some hotels have set up dedicated teams and desks to greet and focus on wedding parties. Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, Executive Director – Historic Resort Hotels, revealed that their property features a separate Wedding Department dedicated to cater and to attend to all requirements of a wedding party. Following the re-opening of the renovated parts of the property, JW Marriott Mumbai also plans to add a dedicated team and desk to its property offerings that will focus on customers from the wedding segment.
In a unique venture in the Indian wedding segment, JW Marriott Mumbai is designing a wedding salon in the property. The salon will be an office space for their existent dedicated wedding team to greet customers and discuss their plans and suggestions for the event in a suitable ambience. Pavithran Nambiar, General Manager, JW Marriott Mumbai believes that the wedding experience should start from the time the customer calls and enquires whether we end up doing business with them or not is secondary.
“Weddings are a stressful time for families, in financial and personal terms. I want to try and create an experience right from the time that a customer contacts the hotel. The wedding salon will be a beautiful space dedicated to weddings, highlighting what we can offer the wedding party,” he added.
He further stated that a discussion for a wedding may be four to five people from the hotel team and anywhere between three to eight members from the wedding family, and holding these meetings as they currently do in the hotel’s F&B outlets does not give the discussion the private intimate space it deserves. Wedding discussions might run for hours. We want to create a space that can facilitate it,” he said.
Lall opined that destination weddings are a growing trend in India with more couples adopting this option. Mewar further added that customer’s demands range from flying flowers from South East Asia for decoration or making a popular western pop star to dance for a sangeet. The Leela Kovalam is cashing in on the increased popularity of beach weddings.
The success of hotels’ focus on the wedding segment is reflected in the strategy’s success. For instance, Fairmont Jaipur hosted over 20 weddings in the past nine months, Fairmont Jaipur has received excellent responses from both Wedding and MICE segments; weddings being the driving element. Similarly, The Leela Kovalam hosted over 15 weddings last year, and has recorded a 15-20 per cent increase in wedding related queries. Courtyard by Marriott usually does 70 to 80 weddings in a year with the growth of 20 per cent year on year.
