HRATS, which represents Telangana’s hotel and restaurant sector, has been promoting the sector’s advancement. The Pioneer engages in conversation with association members, offering insights into their objectives and undertakings.
Shraddha Neware
With an aim to protect the interest and welfare of the hospitality industry, Hotels and Restaurant Association of Telangana State, takes lead role as a single voice organisation representing the hotel and restaurant industry of the Telangana state.
Originally, it was founded by a group of hoteliers who wanted to combine various hotels for their mutual advantage and to safeguard their interests. The association was founded as a joint body that included the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, according to Pankaj Sampat, who is the president of the association currrently.
The executive committee member Pradeep Kumar Dutt, who has been involved with the association for a long time, then talks to us about the goal: “It was started by a group of seven hotels to address concerns related to the hospitality industry. Issues pertaining to various hotels were deliberated upon and escalated to the government’s level of power. The problems were resolved more quickly back then because there weren’t as many hotels involved.”
The organisation has around 106 members including, earlier seven. Members are from various restaurants, three-star, four-star, five-star and five-star deluxe hotels and resorts, as of now and has exponentially grown. Stating the need to start this organisation, he further says, “The city was growing and hotels were coming up. Business travelling was increasing. People who were travelling to Hyderabad from outstation, they wanted a place within their budget to stay. Hotels came up and the need to protect their interests through the organisation was of importance.”
He shares that there is a constant participation in terms of the way forward as to how they keep on improving the overall tourism footprint in Telangana. Executive Committee members also meet regularly to understand what is happening around and discuss burning issues.
Meanwhile the president in the same call shares, “It is not just the members’ issues, but industry issues that we take up with the local government here. As the president of HRATS, you are also on the governing council of two national colleges Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Hyderabad as well as National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management.” The organisation is in a bid to attain industry status for the state of Telangana. The president talks to us about the organisation’s struggles in this regard, “There are already eleven states that have granted industry status to the hospitality industry. We had prepared a paper on this as to why the government of Telangana predominantly needs to give industry status to the hospitality industry.”
He adds that his role is to liaise with other states, understand what the governments are doing there, benchmark some of the good initiatives taken by the government to promote tourism in those states, identify those good decisions that they have taken, benchmark them and then start looking at implementing them in Telangana.
Going ahead, according to the executive committee member, there needs to be a proper infrastructure set up before they think about the tourism aspect. Therefore, they are actively looking at what the government does in terms of investing in places in need of infrastructure, creating a public-private partnership and getting investments from corporations to invest in such places. HRATS also organises training programs for employees working in smaller hotels.
According to area director of Taj Krishna Hyderabad, most governments today realise the power of tourism because it predominantly creates a lot of jobs and improves the overall GDP of the state. Talking about their vision going ahead, the president shares, “It is to have a proper tourism policy for Telangana, due for quite some time now. Having an industry status for the hospitality industry is also overdue. While many states have done that, it’s something that we are working hard towards. Along with the development of tourism in the state, it’s also equally important to look at new skilling centers, which is extremely important to support the growth of tourism in the state.”
