Hot Seat

Born To Be A Hotelier

Express Hospitality gets up close and personal with P R S Oberoi, chairman of EIH Ltd. Excerpts…

Having inherited the hotel business from his father MS Oberoi, the now leader and patriarch of the East India Hotels - P R S Oberoi - is on an overdrive, spearheading the expansion of the group in strategic locations across Asia and the international markets of Africa, Middle East, UK and USA. Today, the group owns and operates over 30 hotels across the globe under the "Oberoi" and "Trident" brands.

The journey began when MS Oberoi mortgaged all his assets including his wife's jewellery, and proudly opened his first hotel - The Clarkes in Shimla, India in 1934. Today, driving him towards his goals is the mantra that governs his life, 'I don't want to be the biggest, but the best.'

"During the course of my life I learnt many valuable lessons from my father, but the one lesson that helped me channelise my career and the way I work was his saying, 'Don't always think about wealth. Wealth will come, do the right things' And I have tried to follow that don't think of personal wealth, and if you do the right things then everything will turn out alright," expressed Oberoi.

People have often asked me 'what is your real strength in the company?' and I say 'people - they are our real asset'. It's not the bricks and mortar and the buildings if you don't have good people you can't run this business, or any other business. So I spend a lot of time on people; meeting people. It is another lesson I learned from my father - he would enter the hotel and know the names of a lot of people who were working there. Of course, we had fewer hotels in those days - the early days - we have more hotels today, so it's more difficult, but I try and meet as many people as I can. And whenever I go to a hotel I gather the people around and give them a talk, they always asks questions like, 'what is the company doing in the future?' 'Where are we going?' and we have to keep them motivated. Our objective on people management (whether our guests or team associates) is simple and crystal clear.

"We see a multi-skilled workforce, which consists of team players who have pride of ownership, translating organisational vision into reality. We also see an organisation where people are nurtured through permanent learning and skill improvement, and are respected, heard and encouraged to do their best. Oberoi is recognised as the best organisation for training and developing its people. Moreover, we see more of a multinational workforce which has been exposed to different cultures, problems and situations, and can use its experiences to enrich the local employees whether in India or overseas."

Besides the group's commitment to excellence, attention to detail and personalised service, which has ensured a loyal guest list and won accolades worldwide in the hospitality industry, it is also committed to employing the best environmental and ecological practices with technology, equipment and operational processes. "We are an organisation which is committed to the environment, using natural products and recycling items, thus ensuring proper use of diminishing natural resources," said Oberoi.

Speaking on what lies ahead for a hotelier in India, "Well I think we have to be ahead of the game, in a way. Travel needs are changing everyday, as I said earlier; people are becoming more demanding today. And you must keep ahead of technology is doing a lot of things, for example, the Internet - five years ago nobody had Internet in hotels, now we have wireless Internet in every hotel. Of course, people are becoming more choice oriented - our customers are becoming very conscious of the environment and if you're not environmentally friendly they won't stay in your hotels. They ask questions 'where does your sewage go?', 'where does your water come from?' 'have you got proper scrubbers in your boiler room?' People ask now, but they never used to a few years ago.

“The one motto that every hotelier, aspiring student or hospitality professional should work and live by is 'Be the best in whatever you do, success will soon follow.'"