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Post-Covid, Chandigarh’s Mountview hotel eateries struggle to bring home the bacon
Performance review tabled at a recent board meeting shows declining sales for restaurants at Chandigarh’s Mountview hotel, barring the banquet hall
At a time when the pandemic-beleaguered Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Development Corporation (CITCO) hotels are bouncing back into making profits, the flagship hotel — Mountview in Sector 10, a five-star establishment, continues to witness poor sales at its restaurants and coffee shop.
The performance review was tabled in the meeting of the board of directors held recently.
The number of specialty restaurants in the city catering to a range of tastes has skyrocketed in recent years. In view of the same, the corporation’s seemingly workmanlike approach has led to the closure of the Magic Wok restaurant — once a prime spot for Chinese delicacies at Mountview.
Such has been the decline in popularity that CITCO had at one point planned to outsource the restaurant facility, but nothing has materialised on the ground yet.
Another Mountview restaurant — Rustle has also failed to attract customers and the sales are a pale shadow of the pre-Covid setting.
In 2018, between April to July, food and beverage sales at the restaurant measured up to around ₹24 lakh, which came down to ₹5.23 lakh in 2021. Sales improved marginally this year, but overall, there has been a near- ₹11 lakh (50%) drop since 2018.
Fall of a crowd favourite
Once a crowd favourite, the coffee shop at the hotel in 2018 saw sales worth ₹105 lakh, but the sales here as well have continued a downward trend at slumped to ₹90 lakh in a comparable period in 2022.
Bucking the trend, banquet sales saw an increase from ₹208 lakh in 2018 to ₹253 lakh up to July this year.
The sale of banquet bars, however, saw a decline from ₹32 lakh in 2018 to ₹25 lakh in 2022.
Rebranding on horizon
Speaking of the same, CITCO managing director Purva Garg said the establishment is in the process of revamping the entire food and beverages policy under CITCO. “We are working on menu and branding and will soon be filling the vacant posts also,”she added.
In last two years, the recovery in CITCO’s financial performance has been broad-based. Of the 14 major business units owned by the corporation, the four major hotels are all profitable.
Hotel Park View, Sector 24, has reported a dip in profit from ₹1.7 crore last year to ₹1.25 crore this year. The other three hotels, meanwhile, have all turned over a new leaf and been pulled into profits.
Chef Lakeview, which has reported a profit of ₹2 crore after recording a ₹10-lakh loss (periods as given earlier — April 1 to July 31) made the most commendable recovery. Similarly, Hotel Mountview has seen ₹3 crore profit against ₹1.24 crore loss; Shivalik View made ₹2 crore in profit after ₹1.6 crore loss last year.
In other major contributors to the business turnaround, the CITCO-owned petrol pump in Raipur Kalan has seen a 50% increase in profit — ₹86 lakh from ₹56 lakh in the corresponding period last year.
