Heritage Hotels in India: Offering Unique Experiences to Customers with Sustainable Practices as a Differentiator

<target id="page_326" target-type="page">326</target>Objective

Adaptive reuse of heritage structures in the form of hotels has shown impressive growth in India in recent years. While this conversion poses challenges, it also presents opportunities as end users are showing interest in staying at heritage hotels to experience our rich cultural heritage. As sustainable practices, conservation of heritage and social responsibility take center stage, heritage hotel owners/management are increasingly marketing the overall experience with its intended societal benefits to its consumers. It is important to establish if the existing heritage hotels have been sensitive to concerns of the local communities while setting up and managing their business. In the current paradigm of development, where the process of any project conception and implementation is professed to be based on stakeholder participation, the best practices represented by existing heritage hotels can chart the way forward for responsible development and management of heritage resources as hotels to ensure superior consumer experiences in a sustainable manner.

The objective of the research is to explore the success of heritage hotels in India in offering a value-added product to the customers, and also probe the sociocultural and economic impact of heritage hotels from a perspective of sustainability. The study focuses especially on heritage hotels, because these have emerged as a high growth segment, typically located in areas with historical contexts. They offer an inimitable experience due to the physical features and heritage value on one hand and are also receiving patronage due to the sustainable practices they are adopting.

Methodology/Approach

An update of the heritage hotel scenario in India has been presented, as extracted from the Ministry of Tourism database and other heritage hotel associations. Secondary research in the form of existing literature and data has been used to build the understanding of various factors that contribute to the social, cultural and economic impact and sustainability. The analysis 327and inferences of the study are based on information collected on sample cases of heritage hotels. The approach is to document qualitative inputs based on a questionnaire instrument to draw inferences on respective experiences of heritage hotel developers. The sustainability indicators prescribed by the Ministry of Tourism have been used to assess the impact of selected heritage hotels taken up for study.

The Major Findings

The research effort highlights the success or challenges that the case study hotels have achieved in offering a unique experience to its expanding customer base, with the practice of principles of sustainability as a distinguishing feature. These findings can be helpful directives for more reutilization of heritage structures as potential heritage hotels.

Conclusions

Heritage hotels represent opportunities for putting heritage assets to commercial use and simultaneously ensuring their conservation. Many such structures are unlikely to find resources required to sustain these without reuse options that open revenue streams. Integration of such reuse with the local socioeconomic context will render feasibility to any projects conceived by developers, private or government linked.

Implications

The inferences can help establish heritage hotels as drivers of social development, especially in regions that are suffering from poverty, unemployment and lack of education. If appropriate processes are followed, a mutually interdependent and beneficial relationship can be forged and promoted that can sustain the cultural component at the local, regional and as a result, national level.

<target id="page_328" target-type="page">328</target>Target Audience

The target audience includes all stakeholders in the realm of heritage and hospitality such as hoteliers, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, students of hospitality and heritage studies schools, heritage property owners and heritage consultants.