Indian Hotels' food delivery service Qmin looks to boost e-commerce plan

Qmin has served over 20,000 meals till date for weddings, board meets and summits, has expanded presence in 13 cities, delivering from across 27 hotels

Till a few months ago, dinning out at a restaurant overlooking the sea or pool inside a five-star property would have been the ideal way to ring in the New Year. Thanks to the pandemic, that’s no longer an option many are looking to exercise.

Amid night curfews and travel restrictions, getting the food delivered from the favourite signature restaurants within the confines of home is a new normal. In a contactless world where direct-to-customer is the universal mantra of success, the gourmet labels are helping the hospitality chains navigate the new world of ‘fine-dining’ at home. 

Among the five star hotel chains, Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) was one of the early adopters to the home delivery trend.

While all the other hotels chains including Marriott, ITC Hotels, Oberoi Hotels, Hyatt Regency, chose to ride on the food aggregator platforms, IHCL went a step further by launching its own app.

It started off as a small initiative just to deliver meals to survive the pandemic but it’s now transforming into a full-fledged e-commerce platform for IHCL, says says  Akshay Tripathi, General Manager, IHCL. “Whatever we have as a hotel is now being transacted on the digital platform,” he adds.  

Qmin has served over 20,000 meals till date for weddings board meets conferences and summits across the country and expanded its presence in 13 cities across the country, delivering from across 27 hotels. The meal packages also include links virtual entertainment including musical performances.

It’s seeing a 20 per cent increase month on month, says Tripathi. On December 24 and 25th alone it delivered 1200 meals across the country and expects a 200 per cent jump in online orders during the New Years’ eve.

To be sure, with work from home becoming the new order, the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) segment has gone virtual and corporates are looking for novel ways to engage with their stakeholders. By virtue of having an expansive presence, IHCL has been able to cater to end to end needs seamlessly, says Tripathi.

“We have managed to deliver meals to 200 addresses for corporate events, simultaneously,” he adds.  The bulk orders from corporates account for 35-40 per cent of Qmin’s revenue. 

IHCL’s rivals too have been lapping up the online food delivery trend and busy crafting special menus to keep the New Year spirit alive.

ITC Hotels for instance recently launched a special ‘biryani and pulao collection’ which can be ordered through Zomato and Swiggy across six cities starting at ₹625.   

Experts see the entry of five-star hotels into the home delivery space as a tactical move, to keep the brands from slipping out of reckoning altogether. But this cannot substitute for the real five-star promise.

“The strength of fine dining especially for standalone restaurants or five-star properties is that it means more than food. It’s a sum total of the ambience, the service and the warmth,” says a hotel industry expert.