TravTalk India Online Magazine
Steve Borgia, Founder & Chairman of INDeco Hotels, has engaged Blusaz Hospitality to manage his hotels. Borgia and Sanjay Sharma, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Blusaz Hospitality, signed an agreement at Yercaud in Tamil Nadu, and each is going to benefit from the other’s expertise.
Nisha Verma
Steve Borgia has passionately pioneered rural tourism. “It wasn’t just for a hotel business, but because I wanted tourism to be a socio-economic tool for rural development and therefore sustainable tourism was far left behind. I was talking about regenerative rural tourism. In the last 40 years, the growth is very organic. We were not aiming to make big money, but wanted to see development in our rural areas and we have achieved a lot,” he says.
Today, claims Borgia, people are rushing to rural areas. “People want to go to rural areas because they believe it is safe. Now, people look for what we offer. The organic growth is not needed. Hence, we need to find people who can add shine to rural tourism. It is time we have many more rural hotels, and hence we need to find operators. Probably in the beginning we need to handhold them, but we need to have operators to manage the beautiful heritage and eco hotels,” he adds.
Since everybody is asking for experiences, Borgia says, “India has gone one step beyond experiences. We are the only country in the world that can sell emotion. We need to exploit that. When the pandemic rush will die eventually and we will go to normal times, the whole world will start coming here. That time we have to be ready with the shine on rural hotels. We need to add luxury to the rural hotels. I thought that was very critical and this was a key reason why I looked at various operations and management companies. We narrowed down on Blusaz to operate our hotels because I think most hoteliers and tourism people know Sanjay Sharma’s credibility in managing hotels. He has pulled many dead hotels out of the grave. Great in operations, he himself has gone through a big awakening. He has operated India’s flamboyant hotels. Suddenly, he felt the need to have a rural experience and
was looking to promote rural India. After meeting them I said that this is the kind of company that I would like to operate my hotels with, and we signed an agreement. Now we must make the agreement work.”
When asked if he won’t be actively involved in the hotels after the MoU with Blusaz, Borgia shared, “Just like you can’t separate the dancer from the dance, I have been such an integral part of the hotel, its story, history, museum, etc., that I will handhold the soft features for some time. I am there, but it’s just that a lot of work must be put into the hotel. I want that shine and luxury to come in. Blusaz will be operating, managing and marketing the hotels entirely, we don’t need to interfere in that. Of course, if the concept is changing, we can bring to their attention, but they are professional and they understand the concept very well. We have discussed that enough. They will have the liberty to run it the way it should be run.”
He adds, “Blusaz as a team sees the importance of heritage and culture in this country. They have operated the Starwood, Meridien, and other big hotels in the best possible manner. They understand the cultural aspect and the very brand that they have indicated here is Blusaz Rural Experiences, which is a great amalgamation and great coming together. I was looking to add finesse and luxury to my operation and they were looking at a brand. And what’s better than INDeco Swamimalai and INDeco Yercaud for experiences. Today, every heritage hotelier or rural tourism hotelier is looking for such passion because it is also taxing for one person to run a great organisation.”
Borgia claims that Blusaz knows the brand value that is already being created, and that it would be best to carry that forward.
