Panel discussion at recently concluded Wedding Travel Show 2022 deliberated upon key objectives and obstacles that matter most in wedding biz.
Lipla Negi
Matchmaking in a wedding is not just restricted to pairing the bride and groom. For a successful wedding or to say, a ‘larger-than-life’ wedding celebration, matchmaking of a wedding planner and a hotel (venue) is also equally important. Coupling the two driving forces of the industry at the Wedding Travel Show 2022, the panel on ‘Confluence of Wedding & Hotel industries’ saw a lively discussion with panelists Arif Patel, CCO, ITC Hotels and Chetan Vohra, MD, Weddingline, craftly moderated by Rajeev Jain, Founder & MD, Rashi Entertainment. Hosted at Hyatt Regency Dehradun, the show witnessed the country’s top wedding planners, hotels, airlines and tourism boards in attendance.
Describing the relationship between wedding service agencies and hotels, Jain quipped, “It is like—we cannot live with or without each other—a typical husband and wife relationship.” He began the session by laying out the key matters that act as ‘bone of contention’ between wedding agencies and hotels. “The hotels complain about wedding agencies taking rates from 20 different hotels and then finally giving the business to none or one. On the other hand, agencies complain that hotels do not treat them as equal partners and make them pay for even the smallest things such as tea and coffee for their staff,” he revealed.
Price parity top priority
On being asked about transparency in prices and commission to the agencies, Patel said, “In the organized sectors, everybody understands ‘pricing parity’. We also understand that commission is the cost of doing the business. While airlines and many other sectors have stopped paying commissions, we (hotels) are still paying standard commission, considering it as your (wedding agencies) birthright.” He further explained that larger hotel chains with proper revenue management streams and culture of collaboration form 65–75 per cent rooms in the country. However, there are still 35–40 per cent unstructured, fragmented hotels in India, driven by individuals and not by professionals. But in due course of time, these hotels will also learn how to run the business. “It is a process that will take some time to become a standard practice. Today, you will rarely find that a lead has come from a wedding partner, and then end-user at the hotel, and a discount is happening,” he shared.
Highlighting some of the common practices followed by hotels to ensure transparency and pricing parity, he informed that hotels nowadays ask for the names of bride and groom and wedding dates. On the question of hotels leaking the client leads that wedding planners share, Patel responded, “Once we get the names and dates, we maintain a complete price parity. For example, last week, a groom approached us via five different wedding planners. So, we decided to leave it on the groom to choose his wedding agency. But we will maintain a price parity with all five planners. Commission, if there is any, is strictly a hotel and planner’s business and the client has nothing to do with it,” he revealed. Advising wedding planners to share details of wedding dates, he stated that “we never try to undercut our partners. We never want to create enemies by giving different rates to five different planners.”
Sharing his standpoint about price parity, Vohra said, “This is something we have personally experienced in the past. We shared a query with a hotel and a few hours later got to know that another wedding agency, which was never in the picture, got in touch with the client directly, and negotiated the wedding planning offering them competitive prices. So, it is not just about price parity. Hotels should work towards protecting the details of the client.”
Power of collaboration
Roping in Harkaran Singh, GM, Hyatt Regency Dehradun, the panelists collectively emphasized the power of collaboration. Adding on, Singh said, “Sometimes the agencies also do ‘rate shopping’ by giving fake names of bride and groom, which confuses us too.” Agreeing to what Singh pointed out, Jain advised the wedding planners in the audience to always give the right names of bride and groom to the hotel “and make them ‘partners’ and not competitors,” he underlined the takeaway lesson from the invigorating session. Crediting ‘creativity’ of the wedding planner as the top strategy as well as skill, Patel stated that planners who are at the top of their game never lose business due to rates. “The rates do not matter when your work is phenomenal. Delivering unique experiences is the most important thing for families. I do not think families mind the 5 or 10 per cent rate difference.” The panel unanimously agreed on the fact that if both parties approach this from a partnership perspective, it creates a win-win situation for all.
“I have been doing weddings with ITC for 20 years and the relationship has given us the confidence to be flexible where we could and put our foot down in front of the client where we could not. So, it is crucial to build an understanding,” opined Vohra. While revisiting the run-up days to famous Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas nuptials, he added that “doing a 7-tier wedding cake as high as the central dome of Umaid Bhawan Palace would not have been possible without the team of the Taj Hotels”.
Compliance challenges
Under Section 52 Z(a) of the Copyright Act, any religious ceremony, including a marriage ceremony does not require to take PPL (Public Performance License), IPRS (Indian Performing Right Society Limited) or any other such copyright license. However, as Jain pointed out “many times the banquet managers of hotels inform the PPL and IPRS officials about the wedding ceremony taking place. Now the officials arrive at the very moment when we are about to play the sound. Can hotels help us with this?” he asked hoteliers present in the room.
In response to his question, Singh said, “If there are any state or central-level compliances that must be followed then the hotel cannot do anything about it because hoteliers also have to run the hotel, and nobody wants to get into any non-compliance trouble and put the entire hotel at stake. The state mandates have to be followed.” Speaking on the matter, Patel suggested that the matter of compliance and licenses should be properly taken up with the concerned ministries in order to change the situation on ground. “No hotelier wants to take a risk when it comes to compliances,” he appealed.
