First Principles
Postcard Hotels' Kapil Chopra wants to build an iconic luxury hotel group in a hurry and from scratch, but without risking it all
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Postcard Hotels focuses on personalized customer experiences for transformative stays.
- Founder-led luxury hotel groups aim to avoid financial over-leveraging to retain control.
- Nurturing entrepreneurship and talent retention is crucial for success in the hospitality sector.
- Balancing long-term vision with immediate operational challenges is essential for growth.
- Continuous learning and exposure to diverse perspectives are key to leadership development.
- Creativity and cultural immersion drive the unique guest experiences at Postcard Hotels.
Deep dives
Founder-led Luxury Hotel Groups and the Risk of Losing Control
Iconic luxury hotel groups like Amman Resorts, One and Only, and Six Census were founded by ambitious individuals who eventually lost control due to financial over-leveraging. This risk of losing control stems from ambitious founders building successful hotel groups. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding how to build founder-led luxury hotel groups out of India and avoid the risk of losing control, emphasizing the need for a sound financial strategy.
Postcard Hotels' Unique Approach to Hospitality
Postcard Hotels, founded by Kapil Chopra, aims to challenge traditional hotel norms by focusing on customer-driven experiences. The hotel group offers personalized services like customer-decided check-ins and local cocktail greetings. Postcard Hotels seeks to disrupt conventional hotel standards by creating transformative and memorable stays for guests, providing immersive experiences and thoughtful touches.
Creating a Business Model to Preserve Founder Control
Kapil Chopra structured Postcard Hotels' operating parent company separate from the hotels themselves to prevent financial over-leverage and potential loss of founder control. By isolating the operating company, Kapil ensures ambitious growth and risk-taking while safeguarding his founder's control, demonstrating a strategic approach to balance expansion and founder autonomy.
Cultivating Entrepreneurial Spirit and Talent Retention
Kapil Chopra emphasizes the importance of nurturing entrepreneurship and talent retention in the hospitality sector. By offering opportunities for wealth creation through employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and fostering a culture that values commitment, passion, and joy at work, Postcard Hotels aims to attract and retain top talent driven by entrepreneurship, commitment, and genuine passion for the industry.
Challenges of Building Postcard Hotels
The CEO shares insights on the challenges faced in developing Postcard hotels, emphasizing the importance of impeccable vision articulation and long-term commitment to building an iconic luxury hospitality brand. He highlights the significance of creating a distinct brand identity through product disruption, service innovation, and unique distribution strategies, steering towards creating a cult brand that sets apart from traditional hotel offerings.
Balancing Long-Term Vision and Immediate Challenges
The episode delves into the CEO's approach of balancing long-term vision with immediate operational challenges. He stresses the value of onboarding like-minded investors who align with the vision of building a lasting business while navigating the complexities of startup funding dynamics and commitment to long-term growth over short-sighted gains.
Personal Growth and Fitness Journey
The CEO's personal journey includes a focus on personal growth, including undertaking strength training and digital detox as part of a wellness and fitness regime. His dedication to continual self-improvement extends to challenging fitness goals and maintaining a balanced lifestyle amidst busy work commitments.
Parenting Philosophy and Reflective Outlook
As a parent, the CEO reflects on balancing career advice with life lessons, emphasizing the importance of varied experiences and learning opportunities for his children. He acknowledges the room for improvement in parental roles, demonstrating a mix of support, encouragement, and a desire for deeper family connections.
Overall Life Satisfaction and Continuous Improvement
In evaluating life satisfaction, the CEO expresses contentment with a high rating, showcasing a positive outlook on personal and professional achievements. He acknowledges areas of potential growth in both leadership roles and parental responsibilities, demonstrating a relentless pursuit of self-improvement and a commitment to maximizing potential.
Personal Fortitude and Leadership Approach
The CEO's blend of personal fortitude and visionary leadership shines through his commitment to crafting a world-class hospitality brand. From prioritizing unique guest experiences to fostering a culture of innovation and long-term value creation, his multifaceted approach underscores a relentless pursuit of excellence and a dedication to shaping the future of luxury hospitality.
Continuous Learning and Varied Experiences
Continuous learning and exposure to diverse perspectives emerge as integral themes in the CEO's narrative, reflecting a deep-rooted belief in honing one's skills through reading, travel, and interaction with diverse cultures. The emphasis on personal growth and exploration underscores a commitment to holistic development and a multifaceted approach to leadership and life.
Artistic Passion and Aesthetic Vision
The CEO's passion for art and design manifests in his approach to crafting unique guest experiences and architectural marvels within Postcard hotels. By leveraging creativity, aesthetics, and cultural immersion, he creates a harmonious blend of art, hospitality, and innovation, redefining luxury travel with a keen eye on enhancing guest engagement and appreciation of diverse artistic expressions.
Kapil Chopra, the founder and CEO of Postcard Hotels told me the following statistics.
Of the 10 million foreign tourists who visit India each year, roughly 10% - one million - are classified as luxury.
“So we've kind of made entire Rajasthan and Kerala as two big sectors for one million tourists,” he said.
In comparison domestic trips made by Indians was around 2.3 billion a year, a few years ago.
Even if just 1% of those could be upgraded to luxury travel, that’s 23 million.
Chopra wants to make that happen with Postcard Hotels, his luxury boutique hotel chain. Launched in 2018 with 3 hotels, it has 9 today, and 23 in the works.
He wants them all to be in what he calls the “transformational” category. What’s that you ask?
The first level is commodity. A bed, an air conditioner and a bathroom.
The second level represent hotels that offer differentiated “products”.
The third level are the luxury hotels come, differentiated by exceptional service.
The fourth level is experiential. It’s what Airbnb does when it offers you the ability to stay in Paris at a place that overlooks the Eiffel Tower.
The fifth level is for “transformative experiences”.
“When you combine all of them. If you're able to give a good product, great world class service, great experiential experiences, soak in the destination. If you add all of this together, it becomes transformational,” says Chopra.
He lists three luxury hotel brands in the fifth category – Aman Resorts, Six Senses and One & Only.
“And I looked at them and said, what is common? They were all founder-led. And the founders were amazing. But the founders all lost control of the brands they had built,” he says.
Kapil Chopra doesn’t want to join that group.
Kapil also has strong opinions on why he believes the luxury hotel business has become sterile and unexciting over the years, and how Postcard is changing that image. Apart from Postcard, Kapil Chopra is also the founder of the table reservation service, discovery and payment platform, EazyDiner.
Over the course of our conversation he also talks about:
- How luxury travel and travelers are evolving in India
- Why did he choose to leave the Oberoi Group at the height of his career
- How he’s become calmer after starting Postcard Hotels
- How he’s doing fundraising, investments and expansion in way that doesn’t endanger the parent company
- Why ESOPs and wealth creation needs to be more prevalent in the hospitality and travel industries
Welcome to First Principles–The weekly leadership podcast from The Ken.
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