Rishi boasts of a three decades long career in the hospitality industry during which he was associated with companies such as ITC Hotels, Holiday Inn Surat, Saj Resort Mahabaleshwar, Vits Hotel, and Carlson Hotels, prior to joining Lords in 2012.

These are tough times for the hoteliers, but with tough times, one needs to have infinite hope and an attitude to keep on moving ahead positively. The pandemic has still not left our shores, and people in general are still skeptical before booking a hotel stay for a vacation. They are learning to live cautiously with all safety norms in place. Hospitality industry and hoteliers especially are the worst hit and have been in the worst receiving end. However, they are learning fast, but steadily on how best to keep afloat their business and customers happy with innovative services and amenities, which need to be crafted differently from their competitors.

Hoteliers are now more than eve raltering their business plans to adapt to new circumstances and customer behavior. They now are busy working towards establishing a deep digital footprint by creating marketing communication platforms and welcoming their guests with technology that delivers the best and cost effective guest experiences than traditional marketing TV ad or print campaign. The tiring times have shown that Digital Marketing campaigns have become solid avenues to build connection and trust with people. One can now address the customers virtually and directly via creative email marketing and social media posts. This is sure to capitalize on underpriced attention and can be complimented with offers, which have taken shape from

out-of-the-box ideas.

Moving forward with the digital vision, hoteliers are now updating their hotels' Google My Business pages for customers to connect. This can be updated with vital information of the said property its contact information, business hours and business description, including Google Posts, which can be shared with updates and enticing offers. We at Lords Hotels & Resorts are also taking the service of FamePilot, a one stop platform to increase customer experience, reviews & ratings, and customer engagement & sales.

A picture speaks volumes of a said property, and now, hoteliers are investing time & money and presenting their best side with a virtual presentation of their respective property and building brand awareness with customers. Hoteliers and resort owners will be soon generating google virtual tour photography of its respective properties, which can have a 360-degree perception of the said property. The advantage of this initiativewill be to enhance the visibility & customer experience and encourage further engagement with the said property. This initiative can include creation of a separate widget on the brand website for virtual tour, which inturn will have its presence in social media via a google link and can also be used as an email signature.

The other initiative we as hoteliers should strongly think of is to coordinate and streamline operations with good service aggregators. This will add value to the hotels'inhouse restaurants during an unfore seen lockdown and can drive the focus towards increasing delivery order. With this implementation, one can intend to use key organic and inorganic tools with minimal investments to ensure its restaurants'profitability whilst reducing expenditure on unproductive campaigns. These aggregators will assist the hoteliers in identifying areas of overall growth and provide solutions by eliminating the impediments towards the progress of a restaurants delivery business.

So, when the going is tough, the tough times interestingly gets going for an hotelier, who is conditioned with the right creative thinking and armored with technology.