Saturday 26 December 2020

Inn - A blog about Hotels.

 Hello Readers

 

Hope you are doing well

 

A goal without a plan, is just wish.

-Antoine De Saint – Exupery

 

Keep that baggage inside, told the lady, Wow! What a spacious room and well-lit too! Exclaimed the kid.

 

These were the voices of a family, who came out of town for an outing, and their reactions when they saw their hotel room when they checked in.

 

Today wanted to talk about hotels and hospitality business.

 

The oldest hotel in the world is in Japan. The Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, a Japanese resort not far from Mount Fuji, has been in business since 705 A.D.

 

I am part of bloggers forum, where they put the top trending blogs every month,  here are the top five trends:

 

Success stories of entrepreneurs, car reviews, pandemics, hotels & hospitality, and emotional help for depression and other people issues.

 

About this big industry called hospitality, accommodation, hotels, resorts, and its services.

 

There are these two aspects of life that matter the most. What did you want to do and today when you doing whatever for your living is it matching you’re your initial pursuit?

 

I wrote about the two aspects because the second facet correlates to the stories of famous hoteliers.

 

Usually for such dynamic topics I go out and talk to people from particular field, Due to this situation, I did not step out and take interviews with such businessmen. Still, I read a lot on the internet, watched some great videos on TED and curiosity feed, and understood these ventures and how they manage it.

 

For instance, if we read about the famous Hilton hotel story, it was founded by Conrad Hilton, a 40 room Mobley hotel in Cisco, Texas in 1919.

 

Slowly and steadily, he went on to buy the Roosevelt hotel and the plaza hotel. Today, this hotel's chain is one of the biggest and a symbol of hotels all over the world.

 

Well, the above is a classic story of a mighty businessman attaining success in his business.

 

But there are many other places where small businessmen and even homemakers tried to start a business for people to eat, which is a success.

 

In India, you have famous names like the Adiga's from Karnataka the Saravana bhavan and Adiyar brands from Tamil Nadu which have set up their hotels allover India and even in the U.S. and U.K and are symbol of their success.

 

This morning, I watched a video on YouTube about a celebrity: Shine Shetty, a small screen actor, due to the pandemic and everything he lost his contracts and switched to the cooking business, now owns a street truck in Bengaluru! He calls it Galli kitchen!

 

The stories are endless. Each time a person starts an eatery that is more than just business, it is a journey it is coupled with service-mindedness and hospitality.

 

The hotel industry is rated as the third successful business type in the world.

 

You know even a small tea shop can convert into a billion-dollar venture all it takes is a human touch. The connect you establish with your customers.

- Sir Richard Branson

 

Courtesy Google Images

 

In the spirit of entrepreneurship, let me wish all the folks who are about to start, already started and maybe running an eatery business successfully all the best.

 

Each guest who enters a hotel casually to eat or check-ins to a hotel to stay during travel wants to feel at home. This is the beginning of the guest cycle, the challenge the hotel owners and people involved sign up for.

Thanks for your time.

 

Happy holidays!

 

Helios.

 

Sunday 20 December 2020

The Prime-Flix-Star - A Discussion

 Hello Readers

 Hope You are doing well.

 By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”

― Richard Dawkins

 The "virtual world" and the new normal is the latest jargon that is going around in all the corporate offices and workplaces.

 I am amazed and appreciate the great corporations and their strategic plans, which brought us into the remote mode of working, in a jiffy, I would say!

 We have heard this rhetoric that the world went through an unprecedented change, and to an extent changed forever.

 Switching gears to technology, the world is now partly ruled by technology and then by people.

 "Online" is the word which is in the limelight.

 Similarly, as we were not allowed to visit cinema halls to watch movies, the server farms of the OTT app owners would have skyrocketed with viewership traffic and increase in the membership numbers which is quite apparent.

 "OTT", again a household name, which stands for Over-the-top.

 This means streaming across different devices whenever we want is possible because of "over-the-top," a convenient little term that explains the new delivery method of film and TV content over the internet without the need for traditional cable or satellite pay-TV services.

 This has brought into a new dimension to entertainment, a new window to men and women who want to show their talent, a Pandora box of opportunities for sure.

 A new concept where you pause and play a movie, a soap opera at your whims and fancy, for a premium.

 There are movies involving eminent actors which got released directly into OTT apps which is definitely a paradigm.

 Now the ripple effect is that it boomed the smartphone market and most importantly, the android and apple TV market and service providers collaborated with OTT vendors and are selling a SIM card with these packages bundled with it.

 The concern.

 Till now, I have spoken all that is great about this whole eco-system called OTT, but now there are specific topics that need to be discussed and addressed.

 Firstly, the content, there is this concept "becoming a hero in the wrong way" I have noticed many Shows which are produced in these platforms move in that direction, for instance, drugs, murder, crime, domestic violence, taboos, and more and.

 The hero character is shown gaining money, name, and fame by becoming a tycoon in all of these! seriously? what is the example you want to set?

 When I took some time out and interviewed some friends and benefactors about this, I got mixed responses.

 Some told me, well it is just a TV show, not much of importance, others told me, they give us awareness about how criminal activities take place which is like a good thing! Basically, the positives and negatives which goes on in a society.

 Finally, there are the rest who say, there should be positive themes rather all the fuss and cry about negative societal themes.

 I am totally neutral just reporting my findings and leaving it to you to share your opinion.

 Here is mine:

 When we watch a video, there are many reactions which trigger in our mind, depending on what we see, and it is well known if you keep watching something continuously, we tend to follow or idolize.

 These TV shows are supposed to self-regulated, and you would get a PG 18 warning at the beginning, I do not think even the advanced economies follow it, so the self-regulation is a myth I strongly feel, the producers can do better.

 They do have all the potential to webcast something positive, and people can imbibe it in their daily life, but they sell what sells easy and quick!

 Am not saying that positive content does not exist, there are some beautiful TV shows and movies both positive and realistic out there worthy of being watched and enjoyed.

 But we as humans have proved that we have a negative affinity and so we get pulled into it watching the negative ones in the name of thrill and excitement and turn a villain character into a hero and celebrate him/or!

 More concerning is that kids are exposed to all this content habitually, intentionally, or unintentionally, what does it do to a young developing mind? will they not think that is the reality? We, as adults, should be more cautious and responsible and consider the viewership with care.

 

Courtesy Google Images

 Finally, the goal is to build a healthy society with good values, this is the era of online learning! So, what they learn matters.

 Enjoy the shows, the movies and all that but also be mindful about your screen time, check if this is making your life sedentary, couch potato, a passive thinker.?

  Step-up let us enjoy at the same time be mindful.

 Thanks for your time, have a great week ahead.

 Helios.

Sunday 13 December 2020

Buds & Blossoms

Hello Readers

Hope you are doing well.

Where flowers bloom, so does hope!

-Lady Bird Johnson.

Writing is a beautiful way of expressing one's feelings, it helps you in the most invaluable way, by helping you to understanding yourself.

For me, it has helped come out of my lows sometimes and made me feel cheerful.

I have always correlated my life with nature.

When I was small, the sky used to be the most exciting and surprising place for me and feel awe... about it! with so many thoughts about this whole big place which is nature's greatest illusion, it used to give me happiness when I used to see birds sail through it.

 


Off late since the beginning of the lock down, I have been a regular visitor to the flower market.

In India, flowers are considered an integral part of the prayer, we offer flowers to the lord every day.

A brain wave struck me during my visits.

The flower is the most important and attractive part of a plant, it helps the plant to procreate and create new generations of itself.

The flower evolves, from a bud and finally, you see the result is a beautiful dance of colours.

 There is so much to learn from a flower.

We too were like tiny buds when we were born! The timidity, the innocence, dependency on the environment around and so on.

Then we blossom with our attitudes:

We learn each day and grow, the dependency on your support system will reduce as you start living almost self-sufficient.

The flower blossoms into its most beautiful form, and once its purpose is served, it warps and finally falls on the soil, becomes manure for the same plant.

In this plant of life, we are flowers budding from its branches, we bloom into so many colours, and those colours can be correlated to our character.

We hit this track of life and start walking; we reach so many pit-stops and move on from there.

The most important thing to do is learn to move on, a plant carries so many flowers, not all the flowers would be successful and may or may not reach its goals of creation.

But plants will not even consider losing hope, it produces new flowers, it works towards what must be done best for its future.

Can we also not lose hope and blossom each day like a new flower and create happiness within ourselves and try to spread this happiness around us and peddle through this cycle of life with a smile on our faces?

Nature is the best teacher; we are all its students from our birth.

Even if we look at our mind, it is a tiny bud when we were born, each day, it blooms and finally blossoms into a wizard, the person you have shaped yourself into with some fairly good support and family and friends.

 

 


Just like petals of a flower, there is a vibrancy in life and these differences is our experiences in life.

We must live through it, it does not matter it is a happy one or a sad, but if you learn from these experiences, the next stop is success for you.

Let us try to be happy as the flowers and explore ourselves and live each day colorfully.

Bloom from your experiences which is like the sun which sooth you when you feel cold and makes you sweat as walk past it! 

Flowers are symbol of hope, majesty, glory, softness and finally love.

We all should imbibe all these qualities until we wither away just like blooms and spread the fragrance and make way for new bloom!.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Helios

Sunday 29 November 2020

Essence Of Success

 Hello Readers

Hope you all are doing well.

 You create the life you wish by your thoughts, speech and actions.

Lailah Gifty Akita

 I have this hate and love feeling on winters, I love it for the blue skies and the clear night skies to gaze at the horizon and the sunlight which doesn’t scorch.

 But kind of do not like it for the headaches and winter wear, of course, my immunity is to blame, and I am in the Indian sub-continent, I don’t even know what actual winter is!

 I had been to Kashmir some years back, and it was snowing, I touched fresh snow for the first time that feeling was very pristine.

 In cold countries, winter is a time of family reunion and spending time of their daily routine, they call it “wintertime out.”

 The word time-out is excellent because it helps you come out of whatever web of thoughts you have entangled with.

  It helps you start over your thinking process, just on a lighter note we need to factory reset our mind occasionally, as there are too many thoughts which are to be wiped.

 The talk of the town these days is building skills, learning programming languages, starting a YouTube channel, monetize them and make money: courtesy from the tycoon machine called “Google.”

 I cannot even get closer to their business strategies and models, they have opened new horizons to portrait talents across the world, it is simply great no second thought on that.

 Skills are what we inculcate throughout our lives either by learning it by personal interest, for passion, or maybe you develop it on your job.

 There are so many online courses available on the internet about soft skills: communication, stress management, teamwork are few examples.

 Communication would be top of the list I would say when it comes to soft skills.

 If we think about it, this whole world and whatever we do ends up at one focal point, that is communication.

 Whatever you do in life whether at the personal front or at professional level your presence will be  felt on how you spoke, what you spoke or wrote  on paper and lastly your behaviour.

 Oculesics- the study of body language is a specialized branch in behavioral science.

 Why should there be so many courses, workshops, studies, and theories to understand and teach communication.

 Communication is the most essential part to live in this world.

 Many of us don’t understand this, there are times when we had to be kind to the person whom you are conversing with, but you were shrewd, and it broke both of you apart.

 We cannot expect to be a hundred from day one but are we open to learn, evolve or even atleast think about accepting feedback from people who actually give you those feedbacks with the right intention, and that is to change you for good.

 When we end up in problems, I feel half of the situation would resolve if we first understand the issue and also if we can explain the matter to the people who will help you decide it.

 Rest of the problems would resolve if you try to understand people, and comprehend their situations when that happens you build a network, or network of like-minded people just like you, who knows a dream team someday. Still, it starts with you how you talk to them. 

Honestly, that’s all it matters.

 I remember during my course study, my professor made us do this exercise. it is called “Chinese whisper”: initially a short story was readout.

 Few people were asked to go out of the class and a story was narrated, now the students who were sent out earlier were called in and the class was asked to repeat the story to each one of the person who came in one by one finally there was comparison between the initial version and what the class told.

  Conclusion the basic story which was described was lost, what was left is bits and pieces of the story with entirely new meaning, this is called vocal adulteration or gaps in communication.

 It was an eye-opener for me.

We all should definitely heed in the direction of improving ourselves each day as we progress through life and one of the critical areas we need to look at is how do we talk to people and most important of all, to get feedback from them.

 


 
You can be called a success, not with your truckloads of knowledge and the highest degrees which you earned, but  when you enter a room full of people and they were all  waiting for you with a smile, that day you can be called a success.

 - Alistair Maclean.

 Hope this blog has opened your mind to think in the direction, which should help you to achieve success in whatever you want to do!

 Thanks for your time.

Helios.

Tussle- Story about a fight.

Hello Readers   I hope you all are doing great; it has been a long time since I wrote a blog, I have been a bit busy, but it is a great fe...