Samar Vijay Singh, Director, Hotel Udai Kothi recently joined NewsX for a special conversation as part of NewsX India A-List. Recognised for excellence in the hospitality industry, Udai Kothi is a stunningly modern hotel with all of the amenities and luxuries that a 21st-century traveller might dream of. Though Udai Kothi is modern at heart, the concept has gone to great lengths to provide all of the architectural and decorative features that make living in Udaipur so enjoyable.
Samar shared the concept behind the Udai Kothi and said, “So it’s an old property and the land was given to my great grandfather, but it was from 1928. So that time, it was all in ruins, nothing was there like no architecture, nothing. So my father shifted to Udaipur from Chittorgarh in 2000. When he came over with an idea that we should start a boutique hotel, so he made everything from a scratch”.
When asked about the USP which made Udai Kothi different from others, Samar said, “ I think Udai Kothi offers a very futuristic view of all the major attractions, for example, city Palace, Lake palace, Sajangarh even Bagore ki haveli. You can see all from the rooftops and especially Udai Kothi’s main USP was rooftop swimming pools. So we were the first one to start the rooftop swimming pool concept in Udaipur, so that was the main USP. You got featured on your feet also featured in Conde Nast that even New York Times feature us in 2003”.
Speaking about the Baromasi, which is already gaining a lot of popularity among the youngsters, he describes, “so basically Baromasi means 12 months in Rajasthani, so Baromasi basically the name was given by my mother so it’s a concept is about you know our star signs and a bar was is basically a Tapas Bar which started in 2019 we can throw an idea so this is basically a roof just lying bacon like nothing was happening there. We made a bar and then me and my dad had a crazy idea that we thought let’s make a see-through glass floor with a pool. We only had a pool barracks. We should see guys like a glass floor people can walk through. So that’s how it became a nice good selling point, it’s almost 200 covers the restaurant a lot and it’s the only place which is like opening till around 2 am to 1:30 am the only pub you know the biggest in the city.”
When asked about his journey in the hospitality industry, He expressed, “Earlier, I was never interested in Hospitality, that was my family being into, like politics, everything from the thought so they always wanted me to be like inclined into politics, but my father always had a passion for hospitality, but I’m more of an event sort of programs”.
He added, “2020 has been the toughest year like you know, nobody imagined how it would be especially for the tourism sector, Udai Kothi was always popular with foreign nationals, especially French clients and till we used to get from like in six different cities. So 2020 happened and like, fortunately, we had Baromasi which had the youngsters are buzzing about it in all are so famous place, they’re so used to government or wedding just to happen, but the good thing was like with Udai Kothi being a 60 room property, not a big property or like not many rooms inventory is that so, we were fortunate enough to have thought of like wedding venues or sangeet”
On a parting note, He talked about his inspirations and said, “ I’m a being big comic book fan always. So I think I look up to especially Batman being my role, especially my father, of course, like, you know, he’s made me everything and I see values and great Maharana Kumbha. Everyone knows about Maharana Pratap but people don’t know how great Maharana Kumbha was, so I see these three people.”