The hospitality and hotel industry has been hit very badly due to surge in Covid-19 cases. Cygnett Hotels and Resorts, a homegrown hotel chain which provides contactless service even before Covid-19, is actively working to open 100+ hotels across India, Nepal and international locations such as the ASEAN countries, Middle East, and North Africa within the next five years.
The hotel chain operates under both the management as well as the franchise model. The brand’s focus now is to grow their franchise model. From its overall portfolio of 35 hotels, out of which three are yet to open and 12 projects are at various pre-opening stages, currently five hotels are under the franchise model.
Sarbendra Sarkar, Founder, Cygnett Hotels & Resorts says, “For Cygnett at the moment, we feel budget hotel brands Cygnett Inn and Cozzet are the right to fit from a Franchise model perspective. The plan is to have 25% of our properties in India under the franchise model and the rest under the management model. For the international markets, our main focus will be the franchise model.”
He further adds, “We’ve always been a technically competent brand. For us technology has been center stage, we had contactless service; QR coded menu, etc., even before the pandemic hit. Guest comfort is our top priority and we even use marketing technology to understand our customers, interact with them effectively and provide them with impeccable service when they come to stay with us!”
“In this current atmosphere, we are looking to increase our Franchise-based properties, as we feel that for individual properties, who have faced a terrible hit the past year, being a part of our brand will mean strong sales, marketing and technology implementation support from us. We have also adopted the emerging cloud technology to enhance operations efficiency across our properties.”
The brand aims to add over 7500 keys by 2025; create employment for over 12,000 +employees and further benchmark “Cygnetture Experiences” in the industry. The brand is very particular about staff education and training across its properties both under management as well as franchise models. It’s e-learning module helps staff learn from the comfort of their premises.