Ever heard of the ‘Smart Basics’ concept in the hospitality industry? If the Tata Group has its way, you will increasingly hear the term across several Indian cities. For, the new concept in hospitality created by Roots Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Hotels Company Ltd. (IHCL), is set to spread like wildfire. And that is exactly what it was code named — Project Wildfire — when it was conceived two years ago. Roots envisaged creating a chain of no-frills hotels for the Indian market: 150 in five years. 

Last week, the first Smart Basics hotel, branded indiOne, was inaugurated by the Tata group chairman Ratan Tata in Bangalore. Says Roots Corporation Ltd’s chief executive officer, Sheila Nair: “The code name symbolises the spirit of the project. It was not a small plan. It was about establishing a large footprint which has an immense potential to spread across the country. We are breaking the traditional barriers with our pricing and positioning strategy.”

The new category of Smart Basics signifies simplicity, convenience, informality, style, warmth, modernity and, most importantly, affordability. All indiOne rooms come with contemporary features: air-conditioned rooms, electronic locks, wall-mounted flat screen TVs, Internet connectivity, mini-fridge, tea and coffee makers, STD and local direct dial and more. The approximate tariffs are Rs 900 for a single room and Rs 950 for a double room. “Besides the middle class customers, we expect corporate customers and the upper class consumers to stay in our properties,” says Nair.

The Smart Basics concept, catering to the “emerging Indian”, was developed in association with the renowned corporate strategy thinker C K Prahalad. The strategy guru believes that indiOne will re-define the rules in the hospitality business. “It is neither a budget hotel nor a value-for-money concept. The Tata Group is pioneering a new model and will follow next practices instead of best practices.” Talking of innovations, Prahalad says that traditionally, hotels place a lot of emphasis on public spaces instead of private space. “We have reversed the trend here. 

This represents an important innovation from India in a traditional industry,” he says. According to Nair, while planning indiOne, the company did not begin with the concept of a five-star hotel and then pared down the costs. Instead it went by the research which showed that the biggest issue for a traveller in India is the unavailability of a clean and hygienic environment. Hotels that offered this at low costs were not able to sustain it in the long-term. “Therefore, value innovation was foremost on our list,” she says. 

Roots hopes to keep indiOne’s running costs low. For starters, it has budgeted for fewer employees to service its guests: the travel desk has been done away with as guests can call for cabs on their own from the room. The reservation system is completely on-line requiring fewer people to make the arrangements. indiOne has 101 rooms and the Tata Group plans to open about 12-14 such hotels or about 1,500 rooms in the next 12 months. Each hotel will be built at an approximate cost of Rs 10 crore. 

An Indian as well as an international designer have been appointed to create the ambiance for indiOne. The hotel will soon enter smaller cities as well as set up operations at places like railway stations, pilgrimage destinations and hill stations. The plan is to eventually take the idea overseas. The key overseas locations include emerging markets like China, Gulf and Africa. According to Raymond Bickson, managing director of IHCL, partnerships will play a key role in the growth of indiOne chain. “We will control investments and operational costs. We are bringing a new dimension to price-performance equation in the hospitality sector,” he concludes.