Mr. Shiwam Verma, Vice President of Regenta & Royal Orchids

Mr. Shiwam Verma is a highly ambitious, very self-motivated and clear minded person. He is an excellent hotelier, a good leader as well as a salesman and above all a good human being. He follows the principle of Ratan Tata- “Don’t take right decisions. Take decisions and make it right.” He is very much focused towards his goals and is always ready to take up any challenges. He is known for his simplicity, his positive approach and readiness to face any challenges. He holds a total working experience of 26 long years in the hospitality industry.

He started his career with the Welcome Group International, Aurangabad and later joined Cidade De Goa from where there was no looking back. He has worked at different positions with well known brands like Holiday Inn, Highland Beach Resort, The Pride Sun Village and Sarovar Group of Hotels. Presently he is working for Royal Orchid Group of Hotels as Asst. VP – Operations and Managing four hotels in Goa and one in Belgaum.

Mr. Shiwam simply loves to meet and interact with people. He has zeal to interact, discuss and handle as many challenges as possible. He does not like a mediocre life. He strongly feels that hospitality industry is the best industry which is filled with challenges to beat a mediocre life. So passion, love for people and desire to face different challenges inspired him to join this demanding hospitality industry.

“Everything is generated through your own willpower”. This is what Mr.Shiwam believes in. He is a very strong headed person with a lot of willpower, which is the key to his success.

On talking about the changes in the curriculum of IHM, he says that it should focus more on the areas like sales, marketing and revenue enhancement in addition to the regular subjects. The reason being-today you really need to know the scenario of the current market position.

According to him, a career in hospitality industry is not for youngsters or people who join just because they are unemployed. He says that only those who are passionate, creative, and have the zeal to service people and ability to confront challenges can join this rewarding and fascinating industry.

He mentions that invariably, the standard of living of the people has increased today. At the same time life has also become stressful. So he says that when people come for a holiday, they want to just relax and become stress free from the hectic life. So the guests should be attended with utmost warmth and homely feeling. It is not the property, the rooms or the interiors which appeal to the guests but it is the warmth, personal touch, small gestures and personalised attention which creates a wow feeling for the guests. All such gestures go a long way to enhance the guest’s experience.
To enhance the guest’s experience, he has come up with innovative ideas like fish feeding, duck feeding, mehendi competitions and selfie points.

His advice to the guests- Nowadays awareness, protection and security of oneself while travelling is a very important aspect which the guest’s should take care of.

He rightly says that the hotel industry faces challenges because it serves different customers having varied tastes and preferences, and people with different mentality who come from different backgrounds. So the hoteliers have to be on their toes to overcome the challenges like infrastructure problems, lack of skilled manpower and government issues like licence, time limit, GST which is much higher in India as compared to our international competitors. In his opinion, those hoteliers who overcome such challenges and sail the ships of business smoothly are known as best hoteliers.

He says that in today’s era, where the hospitality industry is constantly undergoing changes, every hotelier should incorporate certain changes and novel concepts. He understands that guest’s expectation bar has been raised and they expect more than the basics. So if you really want to be a successful hotelier, you must work on ideas to create a WOW feeling for the guests or else you may have to lose the guests and revenue simultaneously. Being an expert, he gives certain suggestions and advice to the upcoming hoteliers like:

• The concept of Pan India Presence should be incorporated rather than stand alone hotels.
• There should be changes in the business module to encompass the digital presence.
• Online marketing should be adopted as it is the need of the hour to beat competition and sustainability.
• Preservation of hotels and property through regular Preventive Maintenance Service and internal audits.
• Most important to above all is preserving the Human Resource as there is shortage of good Human Resource in all Industry, especially in Hospitality by taking care of their small small needs, giving them good positive, safe & secured environment etc