“Being a soccer-oriented hotel is really good for business, and we have already had 1,700 room nights taken by the North East United Football Club in preparation for FIFA’s Under-17 World Cup, which will be held here in October 2017,” says Krishan Kant Aggarwal, general manager of the 150-room Vivanta Guwahati Assam by Taj.
As well as its FIFA connection, the seven-floor hotel is headquarters for the Indian Super League club North East United FC owned by Bollywood superstar and producer John (Farhan) Abraham, whose photo, in the hotel’s lobby, provides an ideal selfie spot.
This is the first upper-upscale property in Guwahati, a city of just more than a million in population: It is capital of Assam in the far north-east of India, a state bordered by Bhutan to the north and Bangladesh to the south. The hotel opened in December 2015 and quickly became the center of choice for famed days-long Indian weddings, and it gained all government and local CEO-level business: Its maain industries are administrative, oil and tea – Guwahati Tea Auction handles 50% of all India’s tea production and 80% of all exports.
“We are owned by Taj, we had a Taj task force in place and when it came to hiring our 250 staff we were lucky in getting many Taj long-timers from the region who wanted to come home. I arrived here eight months before our December 2015 opening and could have done with two months less,” explained the enthusiastic GM.
Aggarwal loves lots of activity. He was born in the Indian capital of Delhi, and his military father relocated several times, particularly in Punjab. His son had no army leanings – he wanted, even as a young boy, to be an engineer.
Somehow, however, he found himself studying Hospitality Administration and Management at the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition, Ahmedabad, during which he interned at Hyatt Regency, Delhi. But he felt he needed to learn people management and leadership, so he went on to do an executive MBA, concentrating on sales, distribution and marketing operations, at Symbiosis Institute of Management, Pune.
“Next I went to sea, with Carnival Cruises, starting off on six-month contracts as a management trainee in the restaurants. That was really demanding. Up to 2,500 passengers would board simultaneously, and yes, a few were prima donnas but we had to understand each one, on a one-to-one basis, as soon as possible,” he recalled. They were tough days, from breakfast through dinner with only a short break in the afternoon, seven days a week and sharing a cabin.
‘The day when I was promoted to assistant maitre d’, in charge of three deck restaurants, overseeing 250 servers, 60 different nationalities – and I was given my own cabin – was one of the happiest in my professional life. Some go to sea to save money, others to travel the world, and I fitted into the latter category, but by using the ships’ tours I managed to save a little too,” he continued.
“In 2010, after my three and a half years at sea, India was booming, and I felt it was time to return home. I joined Taj’s Fisherman’s Cove in Chennai at a time when the 88-room hotel was adding another 68 rooms. I was then EAM/F&B, and moved in the same position to Taj Bengalaru (Bangalore). My first GM role was opening Vivanta by Taj Madikeri, up in India’s Coorg rainforest mountains, and that showed me the value of knowing how to be firm. Coming in as GM rather than being promoted from within is really no problem.”
The opportunity came up to do another opening, in Guwahati, and he asked his family what they thought. Even his son, then 12, loved the idea of coming to a city – and as it turned out he, too, is a sports enthusiast like, it seems, nearly every Indian male from toddler up.
“My immediate goal now is to make sure the World Cup goes splendidly, and longer term I want to engineer giving back to all stakeholders, my owners, my management superiors and my staff,” said Aggarwal. “I want everyone in my team to wake up every morning saying they are the world’s best.”