Chariot Beah Resort - Mahabalipuram

We the Mighty Mamallas, staying at a place pretty close to one of the exotic locations in India,"Mamallapuram". Being an exotic location one can find all genre of tourists, enjoying there leisurely time & for that they have got themselves nice hub of hotels  serving all kinds of luxury tourist needs.
         In the same context I tried to find out how doess having such a huge number of hotels effect each other's methods of operating, their USP's, their hospitality and their arketing strategy. I took CHARIOT BEACH RESORT, Mamallapuram as my subject for study. During my conversation with the staff members there I came to know following information about the resort.

1. They get major part of their revenue from the Foreign tourists, who plan a  longer vacation in India and they find Mamallapuram a nice serene place to stay. Apart from foreign customes they have their corporate customers who come in huge numbers (Generally a team which may vary from 15-40), they plan for a smaller stays of generally 2 nights.

2. The whole year can approximately be devided into 2 seasons namely ON (Sept - March) and OFF ( March - august)  seasons, where in they make most of their revenue in thhe ON season in which the Hotel runs on an average occupancy of 75%, wherein in OFF season occupancy is approximately 50%.

3. Hotel serves its USP as "Customozable Holidays", where in customers can choose from different package baskets, the holidays which suit them the most. Customization varies from the choice of the rooms, villas etc to the facilities which a customer would like to enjoy.

4. Apart from a luxurious stay they provide facilities like :
   - Ayurvedic and welness Spa
   - Neighborhood : Serves as a huge USP for corporate customers, as its a place where Hotel organizes adventure sport and otherTeam uilding Exercises for their customers.
    - They also provide a facility of corporate meetings and confrences namely Orchid (the conference room with occupancy of over 300 people) & Marygold ( meeting room with capacity of almost 175 people)

USP's of Chariot Hotel:

1. Location serves as an important USP for the resort, as its quaint location attracts all the customers who want to get away from their daily life.
2. Radisson is the only other beach resort providing same luxuries as Chariot and hence Chariot enjoys very little of the competetion.
3. Choices of a huge basket of services all at the disposal of customers seeking some time in peace and luxury.

Even though the Resort seem sto be doing pretty fine with their work still there were many customers who didnot find the resort that luxurious as they thought it to be. I had a word with Michael, one of the customers he told that there were frequent balck outs, Jacuzzi didn't work propely & there were few cleanliness issues as he said," Bed sheets are often stained". The thing he liked most about the resort was FOOD. Hotel still needs to grow to match the standards of other resorts of same genre

As per the conversation I had, Chariot does not have a very specific marketing strategy as mojrly their customers are loyal and come yearly and new customers come genrally by word of mouth. Still tthey need to work upon their strategy of marketing as the competion exists  for them and in the near future there might be any more competitors.

I believe a little more focus on the small details on the facilities offered to improve the customer satisfaction level. Along with that application of aggresive marketing strategy would be helpful as they are up against a huge brand name in the form of Radisson which enjoys the luxury of being only 5 star resort in mamallapuram and many more competitors to come.

Vinay Kumar
FT13487