Leitgeb: A tall bill to live up to

Mumbai, June 27: “India is a bargain,” says Peter J. Leitgeb, the new president at The Leela Palaces and Resorts.

It’s not been a bad bargain for him, personally, considering he moved from the Kempinski board to a position where he will preside over Leela’s fortunes.

It all happened three months back, with a surprise call from Captain C. P. Krishnan Nair, the Leela boss who had known him during his group’s alliance with Kempinsky, which ended a few years back. Lured by the new challenge, he decided to shift base to India — lock, stock and barrel. That included his golf kit, for which he paid a duty of $500.

As Leitgeb teed off for a fresh swing, he could not fathom why premium hotel-room tariffs in metros like Mumbai should be in the range of Rs 5000-6000. “Mumbai real estate is as expensive as those in other global financial centres. You don’t get five-star deluxe rooms below $250 in Munich, London, Frankfurt. So why should it be so low here? Why can’t we promote Goa into the premier sea resort league, like Acapulco in Mexico and Mauritius?,” he wonders.

His appointment as the Leela top gun is the latest in a recent trend of naming expatriates as the helmsmen of leading Indian hospitality majors. Last year, Raymond Bickson was brought in as the managing director of the Tatas-owned Indian Hotels “I got to meet him one of these days,” says Leitgeb.

The three weeks he’s been in his new job, the Austrian is drastically changing attitudes, perceptions and plans to restructure the operations drastically.

The 2,500-room Leela chain with properties in Mumbai, Goa and Bangalore is in an expansion mode. It has turned its sights to New Delhi, where it is scouting for a piece of prime real estate. “We must have a presence in the capital city,” Leitgeb declares.

The group is also keen on Udaipur, where it is close to signing up a management franchise deal. After the northward march, it could strengthen its southern presence by adding another hotel in Chennai.

For Leela, the Bangalore property — The Leela Palace Kempinski — has been a goldmine. It’s the only city hotel in India where room tariffs are above the five-figure mark of Rs 10,000. So, Leitgeb has a clear interest in the technology boom in Bangalore enduring.

In Mumbai, where more than 2,500 deluxe rooms have been added to the Leela Hotel close to the airport, Nair is joining forces with other groups to lobby the Centre for a convention-cum-exhibition centre in a land owned by the Airport Authority of India.

Such initiatives will bring more traffic, Leitgeb says. One of the first things Leitgeb is doing is to extensively refurbish and renovate the Mumbai property. “They all look alike with the glass, concrete and wonderful service. We have brainstormed and decided to get the Indian element into our hotels.”