Desperate times call for desperate measures: ITC Hotels, one of India’s leading chains in the luxury segment of the hospitality industry, is now living up to the dictum by launching a bunch of measures unthinkable of in pre-pandemic times.
The hospitality industry is among the — if not the — worst hit by the spread of COVID-19 and the lockdown/social distancing necessitated by it. Many eateries and restaurants have already shut across the country, the blow delivered by the prolonged lockdown too hard for their owners to recover from. And with the pandemic showing no signs yet of decline and with webinar and virtual parties becoming the new normal, even established hotel chains are struggling to stay afloat.
Signature care
While several luxury hotels have started delivering food home — last month the Taj group launched an app called Qmin — ITC Hotels has not only followed suit but also opened its laundry services to the public. “Lavanderia, our premium in-house dry cleaning and laundry service, is now available for all your fabric care needs. With the best in class equipment, cleaning products and our signature care, every item you leave with us is processed to perfection with global standards of precaution and hand finished — all completely in-house,” it said in an email sent to those in their database.
The facility will be available in all ITC Hotels properties across the country. While not everybody is likely to get their clothes laundered at a luxury hotel, it is now possible to walk through the imposing gates with dirty linen, considering that the charges, though on the higher side, are not exactly prohibitive. A gent’s suit can be dry-cleaned for ₹650 and a sari for less than ₹300. A shirt can be washed for ₹245 and a sari for ₹200.
“The service allows customers to hand over the items [to be washed] at a designated point at the hotel. Once the laundry is ready for pick-up the customer is intimated via a message which includes a payment link. The entire process remains contact light with safe distancing at every point,” said a senior manager with the ITC Hotels.
Tie up with food aggregators
The group has also tied up with food aggregators such as Swiggy and Zomato to home-deliver food. This is apart from the app — ITC Hotels Mobile App — which it has just launched to enable people to order food. It is a different matter that its signature dishes may not taste the same on your dining table — with the ambience missing — but then, that would be some food for thought certainly.
