 "Sterling makes room for a curated holiday")
Ramesh Ramanathan, managing director of Sterling Holidays, does not only want to sell rooms and meals any longer. The 2,000-room vacation ownership company is focused on moving beyond the traditional services.
“It is imperative on all companies like us to change the offerings. It is no more enough to offer a nice room in a nice location. People are graduating to experiences as every little thing is becoming an experience. We are trying to make sure that we deliver a lot of experiences. People are not happy with meals and a room,” said Ramanathan.
Sterling recently tied up with a professional clowning company. “They teach (our guests) clowning. They train you to find your own personality as a clown. It is a great hit,” he claims. Sterling says elements like these will help guests in creating memories. The 28-resort company has also tied with TI Cycles to conduct daylong cycle tours around the resorts.
Ramanathan, who earlier led rival company Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, said Sterling was curating experiences with a local touch at its resorts. Its team is busy identifying interesting areas around the resort that are not known to many. For instance, it has found that novelist Charles Dickens had a home in Yercaud, a hill station in Tamil Nadu. “Challenge is to find people to take guests through these experiences,” he said.
“Each resort of ours will roll out experiences in one year. In addition to offering accommodation, we will make each resort a live demonstration of local culture and lifestyle,” he said. The company has identified various routes that guests can take to its resorts and also listed interesting stops for guests during the journey. The company will also add five resorts by year-end, with a capacity of 300 rooms. Sterling is also seeing occupancies go up. From occupancy of 56 per cent last year, it expects this year to have occupancy of 65-67 per cent.
Sterling, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook, has about 85,000 members and also sells rooms through online travel agencies and other agents to non-members. But, all the members touch base with the company once or at best twice a year when they make travel plans. The company wants to change that. “Our customer is normally in touch with us once or twice a year. So, we are going to the cities and curating local activities that has connect with the members’ hobbies and interests,” he said. Leading online travel agency Cleartrip is also focusing big time on activities. Sterling is engaging through activities like food trails and photo shoot classes for members.
“We are talking to people to do sit-down dinners where you pair Indian food with Indian wines. There is no concept of pairing wine with Indian food,” he said.
The decision to focus on these experiences also stems from a younger membership base. “Earlier time share was restricted to people, aged 45 and above. We recently checked our database and found that in past one year even people in the 30-40 age groups are buying memberships. Holidaying per se has become as much a part of life as many other things we do,” said Ramanathan.
NEW EXPERIENCE
“It is imperative on all companies like us to change the offerings. It is no more enough to offer a nice room in a nice location. People are graduating to experiences as every little thing is becoming an experience. We are trying to make sure that we deliver a lot of experiences. People are not happy with meals and a room,” said Ramanathan.
Sterling recently tied up with a professional clowning company. “They teach (our guests) clowning. They train you to find your own personality as a clown. It is a great hit,” he claims. Sterling says elements like these will help guests in creating memories. The 28-resort company has also tied with TI Cycles to conduct daylong cycle tours around the resorts.
Ramanathan, who earlier led rival company Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, said Sterling was curating experiences with a local touch at its resorts. Its team is busy identifying interesting areas around the resort that are not known to many. For instance, it has found that novelist Charles Dickens had a home in Yercaud, a hill station in Tamil Nadu. “Challenge is to find people to take guests through these experiences,” he said.
“Each resort of ours will roll out experiences in one year. In addition to offering accommodation, we will make each resort a live demonstration of local culture and lifestyle,” he said. The company has identified various routes that guests can take to its resorts and also listed interesting stops for guests during the journey. The company will also add five resorts by year-end, with a capacity of 300 rooms. Sterling is also seeing occupancies go up. From occupancy of 56 per cent last year, it expects this year to have occupancy of 65-67 per cent.
Sterling, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook, has about 85,000 members and also sells rooms through online travel agencies and other agents to non-members. But, all the members touch base with the company once or at best twice a year when they make travel plans. The company wants to change that. “Our customer is normally in touch with us once or twice a year. So, we are going to the cities and curating local activities that has connect with the members’ hobbies and interests,” he said. Leading online travel agency Cleartrip is also focusing big time on activities. Sterling is engaging through activities like food trails and photo shoot classes for members.
“We are talking to people to do sit-down dinners where you pair Indian food with Indian wines. There is no concept of pairing wine with Indian food,” he said.
The decision to focus on these experiences also stems from a younger membership base. “Earlier time share was restricted to people, aged 45 and above. We recently checked our database and found that in past one year even people in the 30-40 age groups are buying memberships. Holidaying per se has become as much a part of life as many other things we do,” said Ramanathan.
NEW EXPERIENCE
- Sterling tying up with a professional clowning company
- It has also made a pact with TI Cycles to conduct daylong cycle tours around resorts
- It is curating experiences with a local touch at its resorts