PANAJI
The strategy is simple: Offer good rates to corporates to ensure that occupancy rates are reasonably high even in the off-season.
In a way, it’s a win-win situation for both the corporates and hotels in Goa. As the financial year starts, corporates send teams of employees for off-site to Goa. Mostly, such team outings are just for bonding, but sometimes, even crucial strategic decisions are taken during such trips.
For hotels, it means a business opportunity, as they can lower their tariff to attract a group of corporate people, which helps in improving dwindling occupancy rates.
Shivam Verma, general manager, Royal Orchid Beach Resort & Spa at Utorda, said, “Often, corporate teams find it difficult to get management approval for gala dinner. The companies are willing to pay a certain price for a package, which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, but are not willing to pay for alcohol or a gala-party.”
He continued, “To deal with this, we offer ‘Management Cocktail’ as part of package itself. Under this, we give free alcohol for two and a half hours, two vegetarian snacks and two non-vegetarian snacks. For this, minimum team size should be 25 and minimum stay should be 3 nights. We have started this offer from May 1 and are expected to continue it till September 30.”
Since, ‘Management Cocktail’ comes with the package; corporate teams don’t have to take separate approval for it. On similar lines, other hotels offer incentives like free pick and drop from the airport, free spa and discount on food and beverages (F&B) to lure corporate segment.
Nikheel Shirodkar, general manager, ibis Styles in Calangute, said, “We are offering extra benefits to corporate teams visiting our hotel, which includes 20% discount on laundry (since they wear blazers and suits on such visits), 20% discount on F&B (if their package is not inclusive of it), free foot-massage and even free cycles to the beach.”
Shirodkar added, “The size of corporate team can be anywhere from 20 to 100. We offer free pick and drop from the airport provided the team size is more than 80.”
Actually, the trend to attract corporate segment, which is also called meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE), has really caught up in Goa in the last few years, as new hotels have bigger halls and large conferencing spaces.
Rajesh Mallya, general manager, Hyatt Place in Candolim, said, “We have a hall, which is big enough to accommodate 60 guests in cluster sitting arrangement. This can go upto 100, if the arrangement is theatre style. For corporates visiting us, we even have break-away rooms for them to have strategy-level meetings.”
Mallya said a number of corporates are keen to visit Goa especially in the monsoon team and his team is working on designing packages, which will have attractive pricing to target this segment.
