It is just a year ago that terrorists launched a murderous assault on Mumbai. More than 160 died as they attacked hotels and other prominent buildings in the city. Ajoy Misra, a senior executive of Taj Hotels whose Mumbai property bore the brunt of the brutality, tells ABTN how the city has begun to recover from its ordeal.
Next year in late March, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel in Mumbai will throw a huge party to mark the full reopening of the luxury hotel. It will be almost exactly 16 months ago that the hotel suffered extensive damage and loss of life among guests and staff in a three day attack by terrorists.
It's the proud boast of the hotel, a landmark in the city for 100 years, that it never closed despite the destruction. And while business continued as near to normal as possible, the owners went about restoring the hotel to its former grandeur.
That task is now nearing completion, Ajoy Misra, senior vp sales and marketing for the Taj Group, said. Some of the less damaged parts of the hotel, like the Crystal Rooms, were re-opened fairly quickly, followed by the three restaurants where the last stages of the siege took place. These were "completely smashed and burned out" but are due to re-open before the end of the year.
The last phase which will see the damaged rooms and the ballroom re-open in the first months of 2010. "The rooms have been totally renovated," Mr Misra who has worked for Taj for 29 years, said. "We never closed so these rooms will only be opened when we have done everything that we wanted to do."
Although the owners -Taj is a part of the Tata Group, one of the biggest business groups in India - have relied on company money rather than insurance, no expense has been spared with designers from around the world called in to plan the restoration.
"It is not just the damaged parts that have been restored. We have gone well beyond that. For example the new club lounge is called the Ravi Shankar and was where he first met George Harrison and they formed their partnership. That has been re-located from another part of the hotel," he said.
But if the hotel has been restored, Taj also realised that confidence among guests also had to be re-built. Inevitably this has meant significantly increased security. In the wake of the Mumbai terror, some companies with extensive business in India have started sending security consultants to check arrangements around the country.
"I think for the immediate future, heightened security will be a way of life for hotel guests but I think they welcome it," he said. "How long it lasts depends on how the environment pans out."
A "world class" security firm was called in to advise and "we believe we certainly have a system in place that hopefully should stop such things happening. The guests should feel safe and comfortable."
The increase security, both visible and invisible includes baggage screening and setting up outposts around the hotel grounds. "It is going to be a way of life as at airports - it's inconvenience but for your safety," he said.
One good sign for the Taj and Mumbai is that Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state chose to stay at the hotel while visiting the country in the aftermath of the attack.
The attack also coincided with the worldwide slump in business travel and the consequent drop in hotel stays. With the Taj, like its sister hotel in Delhi, heavily dependent on business travel - about 85% of guest are on business - it was a double blow. Part of the problem was that most overseas travellers were from the US and the UK, two countries hit badly by the recession.
Fortunately India's own economy held up and the missing Westerners were in part replaced by local business travellers, so softening the blow to the hotel. Mr Misra added that business was also now beginning to pick with the overseas travellers slowly returning.
But while the devastating events of those three horrific November days still loom large in Taj thinking, the hotel group is also anxious to move on. To this end, the group is launching different brands, at first just in India, and it has also adopted a major strategy to build hotels at airports where it believes there is room for major growth.
Mr Misra said the group's portfolio fell into four categories: the luxury Taj properties, the upper upscale, the upscale and the economy. The new brand for the second category is Vivanta by Taj, with Gateway as the third category brand and Ginger the economy model.
The first three Vivanta hotels have already opened in Bangalore, Goa and the Maldives. A new Taj is due to open in Cape Town - its first hotel in South Africa - in December while Hyderabad is also due to get its first Taj property next February.
Vivanta will be launched "shortly" and it is likely that this brand and Ginger will be used as the airport hotels as they are more suited, he said, to people who are "on the move". With business growing in India, Mr Misra estimates that in five to seven years time, the country will need nearly to double its hotel stock to about 90,000 rooms.
"A huge amount of this will be at airports now being built. There is a lot of development of hotels now and we want to be there. This is certainly something new for us. At the moment, India does not have the concept of an airport hotel.
"We think there will be a lot of development in this sector and Taj will be there. There are projects already signed - a huge list, signed by the Ginger, Gateway and the luxury brands. We have about 12,000 rooms but we have signed up to 18,000 in the next four to five years. We have signed contracts or MOUs. This is about 30 hotels of which some will be airport hotels. The Government is making land available in this area," he said.
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