“In the current Covid19 times, our ‘Pay Now, Stay Later’ initiative is a sincere attempt to build a robust hospitality ecosystem.”
Nandivardhan Jain
Nandivardhan Jain, CEO, Noesis Capital Advisors, the leading hotel investment advisory firm has stepped in to assist hotels meet the finance crunch with a unique scheme.
As revenues dry up, hotels are facing a huge issue of maintaining staff and ensuring payments to them in time. While industry bodies petition the government for financial relief packages, a hotel investment advisory firm in India has taken up a non-profit sustainability initiative.
Directed towards the Indian hospitality ecosystem, Noesis Capital Advisors has launched a “Pay Today Stay Later” program. This scheme encourages travel enthusiasts to extend a helping hand to their preferred hotels. In the bargain, they also put more bang in their buck albeit at a later stage.
The company assures they have no commission structure in all this -100% goes directly to the hotel. Preferred properties for this platform will be hotels and resorts in leisure markets and key metro cities.
When and how did the idea of this initiative strike your company?
During this lockdown due to Covid19, we have organised multiple webinars for hotel owners. A majority of them mention cash crunch as one of their biggest problems as significant expenses in a hotel are fixed.
To work out a solution for hotel owners we have introduced “Pay Today Stay Later” initiative which is a win-win proposition for hotels and their customers. Through this program, the customer has an opportunity to buy credit vouchers worth INR 15,000 at a price of 10,000.
Is this particular initiative your company’s goodwill gesture for hospitality organisations or it has a commercial angle to it?
This program is a non-profit initiative of Noesis Capital Advisors. We are not charging any commission or hotel on boarding fees. This service is complementary to our entire client base who are getting preference on this platform.
In this difficult time, we are encouraging hotels to pass most benefits to the end-customer so that there can be a rise in the number of transactions to solve the liquidity issue.
In what areas does your organisation provide consultancy to the hotel industry?
Noesis Capital Advisors providing hotel consulting services from last 11 years. We are headquartered in Mumbai and our regional offices are in Gurgaon and Bangalore. Our key nature of services include Feasibility Study, Valuation Report, Operator Search – (via Management, Franchise & Lease), Hotel Sale and Purchase. We are also into Strategic consulting for projects like Tourism, Professional Co-living, and Student accommodation.
Some of the largest foreign direct investment and domestic investment hotel transactions in this country has been exclusively facilitated by us.
Noesis also co-owns conference property which is Hotelier Summit India for the India market, Hotelier Summit MENA for the Middle East and North Africa. Besides these we also have Hotelier Summit SEA for South East Asia market.
Last year conference list there were a number of events like Hotelier Summit India, Goa, Hotelier Summit MENA at Cairo, Egypt and Hotelier Summit SEA at Jakarta, Indonesia.
This year due to COVID 19 outbreak we have postponed all our events to 2021. Instead of the physical event, we are launching “E – Hotelier Summit India” scheduled dates are June 11th & 12th. This event will be conducted over our own web APP will have fully secured features. Participation is by invitation only.
Any plans to provide consultancy services to travel companies too or your focus remains only hotel business?
Our team’s expertise is in hotels and for the next couple of years, we intend to focus on this strength exclusively. In India currently, only 140,000 rooms are in organised category. The balance of 2 million-plus rooms are operating as mom & pop stand-alone hotels.
We see a huge opportunity in converting these unorganised category hotels to up their act via tie-ups with branded hotel chains under their conversion formats. These conversions will add value to all the stakeholders of the hotel. Everyone benefits- whether it is employees, vendors, owners, government, guests and even the immediate neighbourhood. Travel agents also will also derive benefit from this.
This is our attempt to build a robust hospitality ecosystem. This space itself is a huge opportunity at this point in time. We are already providing services to all the major hotel companies across the country. These hotel companies comprise of international, national and regional hotel chains. Companies like Wyndham, Radisson, Accor, Taj, Oberoi Hotels, Staywell, Price Hotels, Hard Rock, Lemon Tree, Royal Orchid, Fern Hotels, Clarks, Ginger and Sarovar are already on board among others.
You envisage such ventures gathering more steam in the present Covid19 times and especially beyond that?
Deep discounting initiatives will be active for the next 3 quarters. Once natural market demand will recover these initiatives will take back seat. I totally believe that post when Covid19 is behind us, whenever that happens, business will bounce back as usual.
Pay Now, Stay Later
The scheme is about buying Hotel credit vouchers. These vouchers will generate cash liquidity for the hotels to meet their fixed expenses like staff salaries. In return, hotels will incentivize the purchasers of these credit vouchers.
The hotel credit vouchers, sold for INR 10000 and will have a value of INR 15000 after the 30-day maturation period. It’s up to each hotel to specify any expiration, blackout dates, restrictions, etc. As of now, the ability to purchase credit vouchers will last through September 30, 2020. Future hotel guests can also purchase multiple credits vouchers. Each hotel can decide if they want to put a cap on the number of credit voucher that can be bought by individuals.
