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

It is a question of matching supply and demand with the quality of services that you offer.  Well, the rates fluctuate up and down.  The occupancy rate is at around 75% now.  Apparently January, February and March are the good months.  From what I understand, occupancy levels start to drop in April as a lot of business people don’t come from Europe because the conditions here are warm.  So they tend to fix their trips when the weather is a lot more pleasant and in Europe and America even in March there is snow on the ground.  I was in Berlin last week and it was freezing.  I had gone to attend ITB, the world’s largest tourism fair.  I have been going there often over the last 30 years.  I think that this was my 22^nd or 23^rd visit and it was very cold and I was very glad to come back to the warmth of Chennai.

These fluctuate from week to week and a lot depends on Conferences and Events, but the average must be around 65% for the whole year though we would all like to see it at about 80% and that is our target here at Le Royal Meridien.

The strength of the hospitality industry in Chennai is quite clearly the friendliness of the people.  The welcome that I have received in the two months that I have been here has been overwhelming and genuine.  And this is from everyone, no matter whom.  Everyone is so friendly and welcoming, ready to help and for someone like me, a  complete stranger, it is very nice to know that you are welcome and nothing is too much trouble.  That is the biggest strength that the industry has got and it must not lose it.  Other destinations have had it and lost it, when people start smiling only when they get a tip and that should never be allowed to happen here in Chennai.

Ah (smiling…) What needs attention?  There are quite a few areas that need attention, but there are some areas that need more attention than the rest.  One of the problems that really needs to be looked at is the tax situation.  If Chennai wants tourism in a big way, we have got to look at the tax.  The tourist is not prepared to pay 25% luxury tax on the published rate.  Chennai will never get big tourism volumes until this tax comes down.  There have been plenty of cases worldwide, where the taxes have been reduced and numbers have gone up and the net gain is that the government gets more tax plus more money is spent in the community.  Business people reluctantly accept the tax structure if they need to come to Chennai and so they have to pay for it, as it is part of their business cost.  However the tourist has a choice.  The world is our competition.  It is not Mumbai or Delhi or Cochin that is our competition.  South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, America, Cyprus (where I was before), the whole of Europe – they are all competition to us.  I mean,  people are all getting more and more adventurous and they don’t always go back to the same place every year.  Simply because the world is so big, there is so much to see that people want to see different cultures.  They do not have to pay such huge taxes elsewhere and Chennai will not do that well until this problem is remedied.

Cleanliness outside the hotels - the streets and things like that is another critical area and a lot more attention needs to be paid to it.  We have the Marina Promenade that is beautiful.  It is clean, attractive and well preserved. Why can’t the whole of the city be like that?  It is not as simple as that, I know.

Another asset is the fabulous beaches that we have which are not capitalised on.  The beach front on the Marina compares very favourably with Rio’s Copacabana and everyone talks about how wonderful Brazil’s beaches are.  They aren’t any better than this beach over here.  But  the Copacabana has been marketed so well, it has been photographed and is known worldwide – Chennai should “take a leaf” out of this book.

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