CHENNAI: If there’s one thing to learn (besides the many primary ones) from countries that have dealt with the coronavirus to great success is that the answer is not in shutting down everyday life indefinitely. While we’re several steps away from the controlled abandon we see in some parts of the world, there’s some respite at hand as the hospitality industry picks up on this mantra and runs wild with it. Given this turn of events, ‘the middle of the pandemic’ is about the best time for Dravidian Hotels, in association with Temple Tree Hospitality, to launch their luxury boutique hotel — Maroma Suites — in the city.
Set in Palavakkam, 300 metres from the Neelangarai beachline, the hotel offers the ideal getaway us city-zens crave. With just 12 suites horse-shoed around a minimalistic swimming pool, Maroma provides luxury on a cosy and intimate level. With COVID-19 concerns still in the air, it is this feature that allows the hotel to be able to easily assure enviable levels of hygiene and sanitisation.
“We were ready for operations before COVID-19 broke out. Now, we don’t know when this is going to end. In these times, people want to stay at a place that is not like a regular hotel; they prefer a place that has a home kind of a feel. And the response we had at the two-month trial run was very good. That’s when we decided we’d open it up for the public,” narrates Annamalai T, managing director of the hotel group.
How suite!
Maroma holds up the promise of being ‘like a home’ with their carefully curated interior spaces. The Queen’s Suite — the largest in the hotel — is all of 600 sq ft big; almost like a small studio apartment. Yet, every room treats you to laidback opulence, be it in the enormously comfortable bed, a minimalistic work station, the rocking chair positioned by the French windows or the patio-like arrangement for the personal balcony. Travelling to the city for a months-long project or stopping by on your circuit tour of the south, they seem to have everything you’d want for that and everything in between.
Despite the comfort and care on offer, the organisation is quite aware of the extra mile they’d have to go to reassure the customer of all things safety. And they have much to their advantage to keep their word too, it seems. “Our property — wherever we are — doesn’t have 50 or 100 rooms; all of them are boutique hotels. For example, we have the Hotel Anantha Heritage in Puducherry. It has only ten suites. It’s a heritage property built in 1967; the rooms are very spacious, the number of staff working there is very limited and there’s no one you’ll be bumping into unnecessarily. Maroma would be along the same lines. It’s very easy to keep a small boutique property more cleaner than a 500-room property. Even the post-COVID parameters are easy to adhere to,” he explains.
Every day, the rooms will be changed twice — everything from the linen to toiletries. Once a suite is freed up, it will be completely sanitised and let to rest for an entire day before being made available for the next guest. Given that their occupancy is at 30-40 per cent right now, this can be done quite easily, points out Annamalai. The dining area will be restricted for the hotel guest for the time period, he adds, just to make sure they do not open themselves up to unnecessary risks. Even here, all the utensils will go through the warmer to be sterilised before being put to use again. All staff will be appropriately decked up in masks and gloves while at work, he shares. While guests are advised against making use of the swimming pool ensconced within their property, a time-sharing system would be put in place for those interested, says the plan.
Their way of service is already proving to be quite successful, says Annamalai. In Puducherry, their hotels rank among the first two on popular travel websites like Tripadvisor and Booking.com. Here, at Maroma too, people who got to experience the hotel during the trial run are eager to be back, he shares.
While Dravidian Hotels, in a successful collaboration with Temple Tree Hospitality, offer the same comforts and luxury in places like Puducherry, Auroville, Kodaikanal and Yelagiri, it’s gearing up to launch similar boutique hotels in Munnar and Wayanad too. In the meantime, the Maroma awaits your indulgence.
Suites are available from Rs 3,384 (exclusive of taxes) for two adults for one night. Available for booking at all popular booking sites.