Ahead Of The Game

Boasting best-in-class properties like The St. Regis Mumbai and W Goa, Amit Bhosale, managing director, ABIL Group, is set to rule the luxury space

- Shafquat Ali

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

While construction has remained ABIL Group’s focus, the company’s has made a strong dent in the hospitality sector. In addition to heading the company’s real estate business you have ably steered the company’s hospitality business and are apparently looking forward to 2016-17 with great expectations. Are things panning out the way you had expected? 

Well, the excitement was obviously for W Goa since it was the first W to open in the country. That was one of the hotels that a lot of us within the company were excited about.

And The St. Regis Mumbai, which is also the first St Regis to open in the country? 

Yes, W Goa was one of the key excitement points but even bigger than that was The St. Regis Mumbai for obvious reasons. It was getting into a year of full St. Regis operations after we rebranded it [from Palladium Hotel]. You have got to give them the initial days of settling down; a phase where they stabilise.

And what's most important for any team that's operating a hotel is to reach that stage where they start gunning for increasing business and not stabilising. That's when they can experiment because they can stop worrying about hitting budget because they know that they are comfortably going to meet the budget, which is why this year has been important. I am sure you would have learned that from your interactions with Anuraag Bhatnagar (multi-property VP, luxury, India, Marriott International who is responsible for the INR 250-crore St. Regis Mumbai operation, W Goa and The Ritz-Carlton Bangalore).