Lalit Group’s leading lady Jyotsna Suri is looking ahead with a new range of mid-segment hotels. Priyanka Sharma meets the woman on the move
It was in 2007 that Jyotsna Suri introduced the namaskar to her hotels. “My doorman used to greet me with a ‘good morning’. That made me think — why make my staff speak an alien language?” Suri circulated a simple instruction among her staff asking them to adopt the humble namaskar. “Even when I write to the Prime Minister, I begin with namaskar.”
This was one of many changes Suri introduced when she took over as chairperson and managing director of the Lalit Suri Hospitality Group (an enterprise of Bharat Hotels) — the group owns nine operational hotels with eight developing ones — after her husband Lalit Suri’s, death in 2006. “I still miss the emotional support that Lalit provided. He was my backbone,” she adds, pointing to his photograph on the wall behind her. But slipping into her husband’s shoes wasn’t very difficult, she admits. “When you work with a disciplinarian like Lalit for over 20 years, you pick things up,” she says wistfully.
Diminutive in size, the 59-year-old mother of four is bursting with plans. In the next five years, she aims to expand her chain to 45 hotels. But the focus, she stresses, will be on The Lalit Traveller, a range of mid-segment hotels positioned between a “two-star and a four-star hotel”. While a Traveller in Faridabad is up and running, work on another is underway in Jaipur. Pune, Amritsar and Dehradun will follow. The Great Eastern in Kolkata, acquired by the Suris in 2006 and undergoing restoration ever since, will also be ready by 2013, she promises. Suri is also working on a hotel in London, which, she adds, will be operational by December 2014.
While deciding the locations of her hotels, Suri has one golden rule: “The destination defines the hotel, not the other way round.” Though she doesn’t divulge figures, she says, “The Lalit is a strong chain. [But] we are not planning meteoric rises or making risky investments.”
The job of owning, managing and developing her hotels requires her to travel extensively. But Suri travels light: her dark sunglasses and running shoes are all she needs. Spending 14 hours a day at the office, Suri wields the same authority in her hotels as in her household. “I’m a very hands-on person,” she says. From drinks to desert, she prepares the menu of every party she hosts. “I know my guests’ preferences, be it rajma chawal or sushi.”
At The Lalit in New Delhi, Suri showcases her recent project with effusive pride. The Lalit Legacy, a tower of suites for business travellers, has been given a makeover. Instead of splurging on new furniture, Suri revamped the 23-year-old tower with existing artifacts and furniture, each of which she had handpicked. The rooms have framed prints of Jayasri Burman, Paresh Maity and Satish Gupta.
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Suri has also been looking beyond cities, towards the rugged ranges of the Greater Himalayas. She has been organising polo matches in Drass to encourage tourism in the world’s second coldest inhabited place. Once she finds “a contiguous piece of land,” she intends to build a hotel in Drass.
Though she is the largest shareholder in Subros (short for Suri brothers) — a maker of automotive air conditioning systems — Suri is not involved in the operations. The business is “well-managed” by Ramesh Suri, her brother-in-law. Her daughter, Shraddha, is, however, involved in Subros.
The other children — Divya, Deeksha and Keshav — have been roped in as executive directors of the hotel chain and meet their mother for lunch at the hotel every day. The youngest, Keshav (27), saunters in and the conversation steers to his brainchild, Kitty Su — a nightclub at The Lalit New Delhi which opened last year. “Mum is a taskmaster and very strict about timings,” says the flamboyant Keshav. “But,” he jokes, “she lets me get away with things that another boss wouldn’t!” Like the kamasutra carvings on his club’s walls and the waiters dressed in body-hugging leather pants, he grins.
As he turns to leave, Suri gives him a stern look. “It’s only seven,” she admonishes. Suri, of course, still has a good three hours to go before she will call it a day.
