The Park Group of Hotels1

India’s first collection of luxury, boutique hotels and, for quite some time, a member of Small Luxury
Hotels of the World. The Park Hotels are a part of the Apeejay Surrendra Group, a diversified
industrial conglomerate. But the hotel business is managed as an independent business by Ms. Priya
Paul. The Park hotels are located in Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Navi Mumbai, and
Visakhapatnam. The chain has achieved global standards of product quality and service excellence. A
destination of choice for corporate and leisure travellers from India and abroad, these hotels, due to
their downtown location, give easy access to key commercial entertainment districts.

The company started in 1967 with their first property in Kolkata with 150 rooms. It had a
highly attractive location, on the Park Street very near the busy Chourangee Road. Subsequently
properties were purchased at Visakhapatnam (1968), New Delhi (1987), Bangalore (2000), Chennai
(2002), Navi Mumbai (2007), Hyderabad (2010), and near Vembanad Lake, Kerala (2010). The last is
a small hotel and has a luxury lake cruiser, the Apsara, with eight bedrooms. None of the properties
are very large, the biggest ones having less than 300 rooms. They are all boutique hotels.

Ms. Priya Paul took over the management of the hotel in 1990 under tragic circumstances,
when her father was killed by rebels in Assam. She had no prior experience in managing hotels, and
she had no idea of how to revamp these hotels which had gone into a state of neglect. The property in
Kolkata was constrained due to its location, and she had to compete with the likes of the Taj and
Oberoi groups. She thought of positioning the hotels under what she called the “boutique concept”,
which was not well known in India (but there were boutique hotels in US and Europe). This was to be
the differentiation for the hotels. It was a risky concept, but “I had nothing to lose”, said Ms. Paul. She
was joined by Mr. Vijay Dewan, who had worked in Iraq with the Oberoi Group. Together, they
developed and promoted the boutique concept in India.

Boutique hotel is a hotel with a “classy” feel and touch in everything it does. Rooms are
designed with the same attention to detail that one would find in a specialised store or boutique; the
furnishing are also classy; the service is distinctively different and more personalised. Smaller than
the usual five star luxury hotels, they offer a friendlier service, homelier so to speak, but otherwise
they have all the features and facilities of a large five star hotel. They are classy, stylish, design
driven, trendy, sophisticated, upmarket, and exclusive. A boutique hotel, thus, offers the guests an
“experience” not a “product”.

To achieve the classiness, international designers were roped into tastefully decorate rooms;
many new paintings were purchased; renowned artists were commissioned to paint murals. The
furnishings were changed more often than in regular hotels. Being a boutique hotel also meant that
The Park had to communicate the image of being young and trendy; it had to promote individualism
and innovation. These hotels were not only for in-house guests but also had local and other guests
who were invited for events, fashion shows, and for celebrating occasions such as Deepavali, New
Year, etc. The hotels give excellent ambience in its cafes, and the cuisine is also quite exotic. Market
leadership has been attained through constant upgrade of products and services to bring a truly cutting
edge international experience. It also runs a bakery, named Flurry’s, in Kolkata, which is more of an
institution than a mere cake café, famed for its afternoon tea boasting of visits by many leading
personalities.

1
Excerpted from Hitt et al. (2012) solely for class discussion

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 The hotel operates a pub, a night club and two bars, one of them very exclusive, all providing
different kinds of experience to its in-house as well as local guests. Its pub, “Some Place Else” is one
of the top spots in Kolkata with high patronage of outside members, and its exclusive bar attracts the
cream of society in Kolkata.

The company’s business, processes are also modernised by state-of-the-art IT systems to give
its guests a different experience. For example, it keeps tract of the preferences of its customers,
including the room arrangement, and strive to spring pleasant surprises on their guests on their repeat
visits by anticipating their preferences. The system introduced by The Park also ensures that the
complaints registered by a guest are also fed into the database of the guest’s history such that the
concerned departments are informed and careful during the person’s repeat visit.

Due to its sharp differentiation, The Park was affected much less during the 2008-2009
recession. While most of the other hotels were facing the heat, The Park turned in a profit. This was
also because The Park has a tight control on its costs, and uses IT to achieve efficiencies on every
front.

By positioning “The Park” as a collection of luxury boutique hotels, the group is trying to
create a niche through differentiation and innovation. Each hotel of the Park Group is different, and
provides a different customer experience. This is in sharp contrast to the generally accepted norm in
the industry, that all hotels in a chain must provide a near similar experience to the customer. But the
customers are kept informed of all events in all properties, and, at a broad level, a high standard of
nuanced personalised and informal service is maintained. How your customers feel when they interact
with your company and its offering can be a powerful source of differentiation that creates a long
lasting emotional attachment. Pioneers of the boutique concept in India, the Park Hotels are
differentiated by their constant innovations, designs, new experiences, creating landmark nightspots,
and excellent customer service.

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