INTERVIEW - JOHN G C WOOD, GM, LE ROYAL MERIDIEN CHENNAI

John G C Wood, General Manager of Le Royal Meridien, Chennai, is an avid sports fan who often comes to work at 6.00 a.m.  Wood, who is a hard taskmaster, is already making a difference with his eye for detail - the result of more than three decades of experience in the hospitality industry.   A fourth generation hotelier, he was actually born in a hotel bedroom - the Queen’s Hotel, Aberystwth, Wales. 

Chennaibest.com speaks to him about the hospitality industry in Chennai and on Le Royal Meridien.

Chennai was chosen because Le Meridien Hotels & Resorts wants to expand all over India and Chennai is at present the fastest growing city.  So this is crucial to our growth in India.  The lack of luxury hotel rooms in Chennai, when compared to Bangalore or Mumbai obviously played a crucial role.  What was very important for Le Meridien was to make sure that it had the right property.  This property is owned by Appu Hotels, whose Chairman is Dr. P.G. Periasamy and it is a truly beautiful property.  It fits perfectly with what Le Meridien is trying to project in its worldwide effort to grow as a top quality hotel chain.

I don’t want to leak too many secrets (laughs)…but the delivery of world-class service is of paramount importance. From the minute the guest arrives to the moment the guest leaves, one has to anticipate his or her every need, so that they get exactly what they want.  This is their ‘home away from home’.  They should feel that if they need something they can get it just by asking and whenever possible we will try and anticipate their requirements.  We have been very successful so far with the amount of repeat business that we have got and the guests have been extremely happy.  They walk in here and see the lobby and there is nothing like it in Chennai. At night the lights are sparkling and it is absolutely fantastic… there is nothing like this anywhere and that is a big ‘wow’ factor. 

There are three very different restaurants offering different types of cuisine, which are proving very popular with our guests.  We have the best Health & Fitness Club in Chennai. And it does not just have one of each piece of equipment as there are several pieces of the same equipment. So guests don’t have to queue up to use the treadmill or weights or whatever.  We have also got exceptional banqueting facilities.  Nobody has got a massive ballroom like us; certainly the biggest pillar-less ballroom in Chennai.  It is really impressive.  We will also have a Fun Pub ‘The Spirit’, which will open towards the end of April.  It has been delayed a little simply because we wanted to make sure that we got the right equipment for the music so as to create a truly unique atmosphere.

Well, we have got quite a lot of that.  We have different restaurants, from the Kayal – our Mediterranean seafood restaurant with its fabulous view from the third floor, to Navaratna with its exotic Indian cuisine and the all-day dining Cilantro with its themed buffets and exquisite a la carte plus, of course, our speciality Food Festivals.  All luxury hotels have similar things but what differentiates us from the others is the variety, the constant innovations that we are making and our creativity.  Very shortly we will be opening our Deluxe PGP Club, on the third floor, which will have a controlled membership with private dining and meeting facilities for Club Members from the city to meet their guests.  Our thir^d Floor Royal Club has one of the finest Lounges in India and besides all the usual features it has a lift dedicated exclusively to Club Members – the rooms are decorated in a completely different manner to our regular rooms and are equipped with their own fax machine.  All our rooms have Interactive TV’s plus High Speed Internet Access and Two Line Telephones as well as individual Temperature Control bedside consoles.  We have probably the world’s best Loyalty programme (I say ‘probably’ because a few people may argue otherwise).  It is a programme called ‘moments.com’.  For every Rs 100/- that you spend in the hotel on Rooms, Food & Beverage, you earn points that you can spend anywhere else in the world, like Harrods of London.  The whole programme has been developed worldwide and you can even get ‘moments’ points when you fly Lufthansa or Swissair or other major airlines.  So when you stay here, you can earn points for a holiday at any other place in the world.

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