Journey of young college grad who is now leading Platinum Hotels

Originally written for www.chaaipani.com
Hospitality, hotels and Animesh had nothing in common. Until 2012. Animesh Damani had just returned to India after finishing his graduation in Entrepreneurship from Babson College when his father asked him to relocate to Rajkot in Gujarat to look after their hotel. “I never knew about it! Dad never told us. I wasn’t even a person who cared,” he says.Animesh,who played in a band and raced in his college years, is now leading Platinum Inn and Platinum Residency in Ahmedabad along with his family run enterprise diversified across industry verticals such as stock broking, debt-financing, public and private equity investments, commodities, bullion, real-estate development and construction financing.“We were never looking at being entrepreneurs, Platinum Hotels was set-up for investment”, he says reminiscing his college years when he worked in book stores, swept the floors. “I guess these things teach you little things which matter the most and make you understand the value of money.” Animesh, after returning from the US got into the business of investing in startups with his brother.

On his first day at Platinum Hotel in Rajkot, he says, “Something caught on to me. With zero knowledge, no background and experience in the hotel industry, I plunged in to this. Since then, there hasn’t been looking back.”While his initial months took anything around 17 to 18 hours a day at work, they’ve now come down to 10-12 hours. Coming from the country’s financial hub, Rajkot was different world for him. “Everything came to standstill! I was bought up in a culture where I had access to everything, in contrary to how it had been in Rajkot. There, work-day begins at 11 am, 1 pm to 4 pm everyone sleeps and 4.30 pm they barely resume their offices and by 6.30 pm- 7 pm they retire. It was a very different experience for me”, he says.

He had an option to pack his bags and return home or accept Rajkot and work it out. He chose the latter.“The most primary attribute of running a hotel is discipline. It works like a military at the back-end while you have to look glamorous on the front-end. Being attentive, cheerful and genuinely involved in your customer’s event is a must,” he points out.

“Whatever be my situation, the customer has come to my hotel to enjoy, in which case, I just cannot sulk”

Taking a herculean task on his shoulder, the 22-year-old set his foot in an unknown city and industry. “During my first year in Rajkot, my parents or friends never turned up. I had a staff, most of which were graduates from IHM, the general manager had more years of experience than my age and we were all of struggling with conflicting approach to run a 4-star hotel. It was a task!”, he recalls.The first few days for the hotelier went in observation. “It was a brand new property with 20 men in house-keeping but the first thing that I noticed was that it wasn’t clean. Everything was a mess except the quality of the food we served which was really good. I tried pointing this in several ways but nothing worked.”Even firing them was “not an option”.
“I tried Gandhigiri. Munnabhai MBBS II had just released in the theaters. One morning, I suited up, boots cleaned, took a jhaadu and swept the front area of the hotel. Everyone came down asking me to stop doing it. It took me 2 hours but from then to now, our hotels stand for their cleanliness”, he says sharing an incident from his three-year long journey.Soon, he shifted to Ahmedabad where took over the responsibility of Platinum Inn and Platinum Residency. “We have customers who got engaged and married in our hotel, celebrated their first anniversary and baby shower in our hotel, baby’s birthday in our hotel. That is kind of bond we share with our guests”, he says.While working with the staff at a hotel is a task, it didn’t deter the young hotelier’s enthusiasm and spirit. “We have faced and overcame challenges of staff attrition and difficulty in hiring as well as non-cooperative staff. It did get difficult because no matter what, we couldn’t compromise with our service”, says Animesh, proudly sharing how gradually his entire staff became a part of the hotel.

Discussing future endeavors, Animesh shares, “Though we still want to focus on marriages, we are targeting different segments of youth and corporate. We’ve recently opened a new cafe – Beans & Leaves.“Running a cafe seems like a different ball game altogether. However, Animesh seems to have figured the nuances of the business. “It is not very different on the back-end. But on the front we have to be more lively and energetic. We are planning to screen major sporting events, run regular promos and keep adding elements that tickle the funny bone inside us all”, he adds.