Wellness in Hospitality - Interview with Hemant Gupta

“We have to make wellness easy to understand for people. Wellness has to be pocket friendly if it really wants to become a sustainable business.” - Hemant Gupta

Human beings are naturally very forgetful. Those of us who are old enough to understand the full impact that this pandemic has had on our way of life will remember the challenges we’ve faced, but as time goes on, our fears and worries will be drowned in the strong current of a world that has moved on. When that happens, hospitality will once again thrive. Yet the face of the industry will not look the same. A clear shift will be visible, a before and an after starkly marked by the pandemic. Post-COVID, hospitality will enter a new dimension, one that emphasises - rather than implies - the wellbeing of its clients and all other stakeholders. It is this emphasis on wellbeing that I hope to pioneer through this interview series.

My next interviewee has been in the industry for almost two decades. Having worked his way up in the hotel industry, Hemant Gupta has received several accolades that highlight his skill and leadership. His insights on wellness in hospitality demonstrate a firm grasp on what the industry strengths and weaknesses are on all levels.

Interview Highlights

1. Sustainability in crisis

Many hotels have had to either remain closed or have had to open and close as countries battle with multiple lockdowns. However, for those that are open, breaking even is the top priority. This includes retaining as many staff members as possible, while also managing expenses to avoid borrowing any more than is necessary or to minimise losses. Hotels that can push through these tumultuous times and manage to keep their doors open - even without profit - will already be ahead of the curve. Once this phase is over, hoteliers will then be able to focus on making some money once more. In a couple of years, the industry may be able to bounce back to the growth levels projected at the end of 2019. Thus, hoteliers need to channel all efforts towards sustaining their businesses from month to month until profitability becomes feasible again.

2. Wellness education

For the traditional hoteliers, wellness is not a very ‘popular’ term. For them, the knowledge around wellness is limited. For hotels who aspire to be known for wellness, every team member should experience what wellness is. Once our front line team members experience what wellness is and reap its benefits, it becomes easier for them to explain. You can’t explain something you haven’t truly experienced. Wellness training for staff should not be limited to only classroom or theory sessions; we must offer our teams practical experiences. That’s when the education seeps in and your associate connects with the vision of the hotel or the brand on a personal and emotional level. That’s when we set them up for success to deliver wellness back to our guests with vigour and enthusiasm.

3. Investing in wellness

The pandemic has made us realise how vulnerable we are mentally and emotionally, irrespective of how physically strong one is. This is evident in the rise of users for meditation apps like Headspace and Calm. It’s proof that opportunity exists for investment in other aspects of wellness. The big question here is how can we make it affordable.

Hotels have always invested in physical wellness, which is tangible. Be it healthy food and beverage on the menu or having a spa and gym in the premises. But today, we must address the intangible aspects of wellness – emotional, spiritual and mental, which can only be felt by the user.

Investing in wellness will always pay off in the longer run because it meets the basic need of every human being. If we look around us, we see a plethora of independently-run day spas, meditation apps, increased demand for high fibre food, longer queues to meet nutritionists, daily yoga camps in nearby parks, the rise of NLP therapists. This gives us a clear cue that there is an immediate and growing need for overall wellbeing. If hotels can do a good job in curating these aspects of wellbeing and bringing wellbeing front and centre, every penny invested in wellness is worthwhile.  

For wellness to gain traction in hospitality, hoteliers must move from considering it as only an intangible part of the industry and highlight it in its services’ ecosystem. They must be more explicit about how they cater to the guests’ wellbeing and actively seek to educate both themselves, their teams and their guests about wellness.

Many thanks to Hemant for his valuable take on the issue of wellness in hospitality. The dialogue started from this information exchange will no doubt shape the future of the industry.

Thank you to everyone who has been following this series and engaging in the constructive discussions in the comments section. If you are a hotel general manager, hotel owner or investor and you are interested in being part of my Wellness in Hospitality interview series, direct message me here on LinkedIn. Please note responses may take a couple of days due to increased interest in putting wellness at the core of hospitality.