Leaves, shoots and the green hotel

Taking inspiration from the first plant on earth — the fern — hotelier Param Kannampilly has been treading the sustainable path

July 05, 2017 04:58 pm | Updated 09:20 pm IST

There was a time when India lacked good mid-market hotels. Today, the traveller is spoilt for choice, with so many brands crowding the three-star and four-star categories. With Ibis, Hyatt Place, Four Points by Sheraton, Keys, Holiday Inn Express and Lemon Tree spreading roots across the country, we certainly have a lot of stay options. But, for a hotelier, the dilemma arises — how do you differentiate your offering?

Very early on, Param Kannampilly, the soft-spoken, affable chairman and managing director of Concept Hospitality, found a niche with his Fern brand of hotels or ecotels as they are called. Everything in the Fern ecotel is built or created with a green mantra — from the core of the building which is run on sustainable energy platforms, and the chilling units to tiny details such as recyclable pens, jute folders or clothes hangers made of sawdust. India Inc may have made Corporate Social Responsibility a buzz word today, but at Concept, the slogan they promote is CER — Corporate Environment Responsibility.

Today, the pretty green frond logo of The Fern is travelling across India rapidly, with 33 hotels across the country and many more in the pipeline. According to Kannampilly, there’s a lot of interest shown by hotel owners in tier-two and tier-three towns especially. By 2020, Fern will be adding another 18 ecotels with 1,500 green rooms, mostly in smaller towns.

Serendipitous start

It was an accident of fate that brought the Burma-born, Indonesia-schooled Kannampilly (his father was in the diplomatic corps) into hospitality. After his Inter Sciences in Bombay, he wanted to become a dentist, and applied to Osmania University. He got a telegram saying he had been selected. “I kept waiting and waiting for further news, but there was none.” Finally, he discovered that due to the Telangana agitation, the dental faculty was in disarray and the fate of the course uncertain.

Since some friends were in catering college, he decided to join that in 1971, and stuck on to finish the four-year course. Then came a long and varied career in hospitality, spanning the Taj group, Spencer’s, Leela, the Rahejas and a few independent hotel properties. In 1996, he decided to turn consultant and set up Concept Hospitality to manage hotels for other people. Restaurateur Dr Vithal Kamat took some stake in the firm, and Kannampilly joined the Kamats as technical advisor.

At that time, the Orchid Mumbai, a project by the Kamats, was in the development stage. “We were brainstorming and I said that if you are doing more than one hotel, we need to think of a concept that will last not just a decade but through the next century,” says Kannampilly. Various ideas were thrown up — could they look at a non-smoking hotel and so on, until they hit upon the environment-friendly hotel positioning.

The Orchid Mumbai, when it finally came up in Santa Cruz, became Asia’s first certified ecotel. There were many firsts at the hotel, says Kannampilly, describing how an eco panel was created in all rooms to switch off lights that were not used, and an interactive TV spread the message of saving resources. “We brought in the first screw compressors, energy storage systems and so on,” says Kannampilly. After that, he went about evangelising green buildings to his clients — among others, he was consulting for The Wall Street Hotel in Jaipur, Seasons Service Apartments in Pune, The Uppal in Delhi NCR.

In 2009, he decided to buy back the equity stake given to Kamats and create his own brand Fern. “There were two or three reasons for the name,” he explains. “It was the first plant that existed on earth. Second, environment consciousness is a concern of everyone and the brand would stand out. Third, it was a two-syllable name with easy recall.”

Concept today has other brands in its portfolio — there’s Beacon, and now with Nepalese billionaire Binod Chaudhary-led CG Corp investing in the company, there’s his Zinc in the mix as well. But it’s Fern that has been the clutter-breaking concept from Concept.

The writer is an editorial consultant with 'BusinessLine', who writes on consumer behaviour but keeps an interested gaze at the travel and hospitality sector

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.