Jayant Singh, Managing Partner of Treehouse Hotels, a hotel management company for inventory hotels, is the man behind India&rsquos Top Hotelier, the country's first hospitality training service show. His quest is for the next big thing in hospitality which augments the industry in any which way. Jayant started Treehouse in September 2007 and is also the India Business Head of AWSEC (Asia Wine Service & Education Centre), and the Founder & CEO of Onlycefs.
When did you get the idea to initiate this, and how long did it take to implement it
The idea is pretty old. I was asked to set up a training institute for the Royal Government of Bhutan for the coronation of the 5th king in 2008. There were no visual aids available at that time. The only reference points were American hotel and motel training videos, which had very little relevance to the Indian sub-continent. It was this episode that led to the resolve to do something in hospitality training, which caters to Indian audiences at large. With the growth of the digital medium and opening up of avenues, the ideas was to do something in a format that could make us reach a more significant segment of the audience. Also, we did not want another coaching institute online. We wanted to make it fun and entertaining. Thus, the idea of doing a gamified training show was initiated.
What is the show all about
One can call it a mini web series it has three episodes. The idea is to make training interesting and to do that, we have used a game show format. The topics are carefully chosen and with due research to cover one aspect of hospitality service at a time. The contestants are asked to do various tasks (covering hospitality and service topics), and after each task, there is a master class. So effectively, it becomes a complete training around the chosen set of topics with live evaluation.
Who is the target audience
Every person who aspires to be a good hotelier. It is a fun way of learning. We hope that the audience relates to one of the participants and identifies with them. This way, they will follow their journey and try to imbibe the right way of doing things.
What's the faculty like
There are two aspects to the faculty the game show judges and the master class. The game show judges are chosen from various backgrounds of the hospitality industry. They are usually veterans who bring with them years of experience and wealth of knowledge. In the present season, we also brought in celebrity judges to get the guest part of feedback during the show. The master class after every episode is held by renowned industry veterans.
What is the future of online training
People will move away from classroom-style training programmes to online, as it is more personal, and you can learn at a time convenient to you. The success of Byju's, Coursera, and other online apps is testimony to this fast-growing trend.
What are your future plans
We will be populating the channel with a lot of content and build it up to Season 2, which will see a lot of different competitions and master classes.
These are free to watch
Episode 1 Covers the topic of service for beverages.
You can also watch it on Facebook.
Episode 2 Covers the topic of finest servers.
You can also watch it on Facebook.