With the Covid-19 pandemic badly affecting various areas of commercial and economic importance across the world, one of the worst-hit sectors continues to be tourism and hospitality.
In India also, the three-month-long lockdown has impacted several sectors quite badly, with some of them having come to a complete halt.
According to a recent report by the JLL India Hotels and Hospitality Group, Delhi saw a significant decline in Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) in July 2020, a decline of 44.3% over the same period in the previous year.
However, this is the most modest decline as compared to all major cities in India. The city’s RevPAR is slowly rising as the central and state governments have gradually eased lockdown restrictions, with international repatriation flights and some domestic travel leading the way for the recovery of the hospitality sector in the country’s capital.
The Vande Bharat Mission has also gone a long way in helping Delhi hotels capture their businesses again. One of the world’s largest evacuation missions had institutional quarantine as one of its protocols and the locations used to quarantine the brought-back Indians were the hotels in the national capital. Unfortunately, other parts of the country did not even get that help.
“Delhi’s hotel demand is driven by corporate business travel, Government and judiciary linked travel and leisure segment travel. Out of these, Government, Judiciary and Administration linked travel is likely to come back sooner followed by businesscritical travel. Leisure travel is not going to come back in the next couple of years.” says Jaideep Dang, Managing Director, Hotels & Hospitality Group (India), JLL.
Moreover, hotels are also receiving several inquiries for weddings and social events with limited gatherings, within the allowed limit of 50 people per function. Many hotel venues have been pre-booked for all auspicious wedding dates in November.
Food and Beverage (F&B) service is being revamped across most hotels with the removal of buffets and introduction of pre-plated meals, online delivery listings as well as delivery of do-it-yourself (DIY) meal kits.