Turning around hotels the Luminara way

You have heard about turnaround specialists -- experts who take over loss-making companies, bring them back to profit and run them on a profit-sharing basis or selling them at huge margins.

KOCHI:  You have heard about turnaround specialists -- experts who take over loss-making companies, bring them back to profit and run them on a profit-sharing basis or selling them at huge margins. In Kochi, turnover specialist Luminara group is following a similar strategy, and successfully too. Recently, the group had taken over the Elite Tourist Home, which was once a famous landmark in Kochi, before it fell into bad times following the liquor prohibition. “The business at Elite was not good, but the hotel still kept floating. But the prohibition forced the hotel to shut operations,” says Paul George, managing director of Luminara.

Paul George
Paul George

He said Luminara will reorient and re-train the Elite hotel staff, from the reception to the kitchen to room service. “We will bring in accountability and effective control on purchases and inventory, and we will also use social media and digital marketing tools, besides the print media for effective marketing,” said Paul, who did his MBA in Singapore. 

“For Elite, we worked on a very tight budget, resorted to sustainable construction practices, recruited new staff and retained a few old hands, and went in for a brand rejig. The result is Luminara,” he said, adding that the hotel has set itself high occupancy targets for this quarter, despite the difficult economic scenario. “However, incessant rains and flooding have affected tourist flow. But we met our occupancy target which is quite decent in this market,” he said.

Paul said he is now ready to offer his expertise to other hotels that are ‘in a pickle’. “Lots of people from the industry visited our hotel and they were amazed by the way it has been transformed. So, naturally, many of them are curious to know whether Luminara could help them,” he said.The group is in talks with a few hospitality companies. “We aim to help them reduce their operating and overhead costs and make them profitable,” Paul said.

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