Six more properties soon in WelcomeHeritage

Bhopal, Jan 27: The WelcomeHeritage would soon include at least six more new properties in the series of its hotels. At present, it has 54 hotels in possession. Besides, Bhopal would soon be developed as herbal and Ayurveda treatment center in its hotel Noor-us-Sabah Palace. Rakesh Mathur, President of the WelcomeHeritage Group said, “At present, I’m in discussion with over 50 odd heritage property owners in the country, but we have to so how many talks get materialized.”

This group has five heritage hotels in Madhya Pradesh. They include Noor-us-Sabah Palace, Amla fort, Pachmarhi, Bandhavgarh and Kanka. Mathur believes besides a business center, Madhya Pradesh has potential of attracting tourists for holidays. It is the best state to relax. Even in Bhopal, the location of Noor-us-Sabah Place is fantastic, where one can relax. Talking about his plans in Bhopal, he stated that in the next fiscal year good spa center along with ayurvedic treatment and herbal massage center. “We want to develop holiday culture in Madhya Pradesh,” he added.

He informed that talks with heritage property owners are going on. These properties are in Rajasthan, Darjilling hills, Assam, Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. “Growth is a continuous process and by the end of current fiscal year, we would add few more properties in hour group,” he asserted. Mathur stated that the group bagged Express Galileo award three times in a row, which is a record. This award is being given for promoting heritage hotels. Talking about success mantra of the group, he says complete sincerity and dedication towards promoting heritage and overlooking immediate gains. “The heritage property owners should feel it is for their benefit to join hands, not for ours,” he added.

Talking about eco-friendly hotels, Mathur said ITC hotels are the biggest followers of environment friendly. It has done a lot of research and development towards becoming eco-friendly. “In our hotels, less energy, and water is consumed. Besides, water recycling is also done, which is quite rare in hospitality industry. However, it is not our marketing style,” he added. In connection with the recently held seller-buyer meet in Bhopal, he stated that it was a good initiative, which would yield better results, but he stated a policy to improve heritage hostels that had come up in the year 2003, should be notified. He informed that a similar meet was orgnaised in the year 2003 by Indian Heritage Hotels Association. It was decided to implement new policy, but could not be done by the then government. Unless this policy is notified, and infrastructure like improvement in power situation and better connectivity through road, the dream would not be fulfilled, he added.