Meet Rajit Shetty, the driving force behind Ramee Group’s meteoric rise to prominence in the lifestyle and hospitality sector. With an unwavering passion for crafting unforgettable experiences, Rajit has masterfully steered the group’s expansion, introducing trailblazing F&B concepts that have redefined the hospitality landscape in India and the Middle East.
From its humble beginnings to its current stature as an award-winning hospitality powerhouse, Rajit’s relentless pursuit of excellence and dedication to his family’s legacy have cemented Ramee Group’s position as a leader in the industry. Under his visionary leadership, the group has consistently pushed the boundaries of innovation, elevating the standards of hospitality and setting new benchmarks for exceptional service.
What inspired you to join the family business, and how did your educational background in psychology, pre-law, and communication influence your approach to managing Ramee Group?
Initially, nothing really inspired me to join the family business. I think what ideally clicked was the romanticism of what hospitality or creating memories or moments for someone or anyone for the fact of the way it can make you feel so when I start experiencing hospitality around the world I fell in love with, is when I realized, I had this opportunity with my family business where I could do the same kind of romanticism and add memories and influence and spread kind of happiness with small things like a restaurant or something special that you actually do in a hotel room with a guest when they check in, is when I was inspired to get into the family business. It took a while after college , that’s when it clicked. My educational background helps in the sense that it’s very human working with humans in this industry, right, we do make physical products,but at the end of the day it’s very working with people ,communication, emotion run business. It’s a human driven business and its human experience business, which is our end customer.
Ramee Group has evolved significantly under your leadership. What were some of the key strategies you employed to transform Ramee from a hospitality brand to a prominent lifestyle brand?
In terms of the Ramee group evolving under my leadership, the strategy I would say is we are getting it from making it a lifestyle brand, that’s what differentiates us from competitors. There are other lifestyle hotels like Five in Dubai or like the hotel that have history and a certain element of the audience that’s there. When you stay around, you understand to a degree while you’re getting F&B experience with Cozy rooms. That’s what we’re going for. I think once as I got promoted and moved up in the company and got into the core of it their way of vision has evolved would be is it still the same vision that is started by my father, Raj but at the same time, it’s just a little bit more polished and upgraded for the next generation for coming years. The language might be different. We still have similar visions, but we have different opportunities in the way we want to be represented. We focus more now in terms of the dining experience and the boutique experience or like a luxury experience or like a life experience in terms of just certain uses before because the opportunity is there now thanks to my father and his continuous work. That’s where our vision is heading towards. We’re trying to be a hospitality family, including the actual family and the people working in a company. We see it as our family as well, and it’s a brand that we want to grow towards, we want to grow passionately into lifestyle and into operational living responsibility, etc. So the vision evolved by generational perspective and where we want to implement most of our quality: working with quality, doing quality projects work, focusing on experience more focusing on your guest perspective. How to make your guest feel how to streamline service, how to streamline guest experience , how to evolve with technology, etc. That’s where we are different.
Can you discuss any specific challenges you faced while expanding Ramee hospitality’s presence in India and how you overcame them?
Challenges that I think we face are still evolving, is getting the right people for the right task. It takes a lot of patience, a little bit of luck,there are two ways to get the right person-inspiring within the company or inspire someone to join you. One advantage that we have is that we are in the beginning of our major expansion, so a lot of people don’t get in a company at the precipice of their expansion. Like now you join a Marriott but it has already expanded and is expanding, the backbone has been built and that’s what we are focusing on for Ramee. Getting experienced people is the challenge and inspiring people for the vision , but it’s worth the wait and the challenge once you find the perfect fit.
You’ve introduced several innovative F&B concepts at Ramee. What’s your approach to driving innovation in the F&B sector, and how do you ensure these concepts align with the brand’s identity?
It’s an ongoing process every single day until it’s set. When a baby is born, make sure it’s taken care of, maintain it, watch over it. We think about what we do in the market. When we come up with a project, we think about, what do we want to do in the market? That is, how do we fit in the market? Who is our competitor? Who do we want to be with these competitors? Who do we want to be for our clientele? And who do we want to and what do we want to push like do we want to push a certain boundary? We always, I always try to think of it in a way that always try to do something a little bit different, that you’re pushing certain boundaries in terms of challenging a palette or an audience and experience wise. We do that with Megumi. We do that with Ilili. We’re doing that with our upcoming projects. So it’s a little bit of familiarity, but a little of something new, right? A bit of both. And keeping brand identity is a day to day job. It’s ongoing. It’s constant. It starts in the kitchen, from the way your hostesses greet your guests, the marketing online, the way the bartenders have flair. A lot of it is tied into the identity. And if so, Megumi is a little bit higher, and Ilili. is a bit more casual, and the consistency of how the product is from day one till the end is a day to day job in terms of how to keep an identity going for it.
Looking ahead, what are your main objectives for Ramee Group over the next five years, and how do you plan to achieve them?
Looking ahead over the next five years, we have a bunch, I mean, put simply, we have quite a few F&B projects coming up. We have hotels in the pipeline as well, but we’re going to focus on one. So in the next five years, Ramee Juhu, Rami dream Juhu should be done with a five star hotel, or should be about to be launched, God willing, if nothing happens to the economy or no covid, etc, yeah. Then, in terms of venues, we definitely will have around 10 to 15 more, possibly 20 more. We’re also looking to franchise and set up management contracts for those that’s just on other than owned assets. I mean, we have that, and other than that, we have, I know, at least 10 new management contracts also coming up just in a few years. So I know in five it’ll probably double. So quite a lot of things to do for the Rami group. Everyone in the Ramee group, including myself, looking ahead and the future, is looking optimistic because it’s keeping us busy. And yeah, a really good foundation to start off of with in terms of the expansion.
6) With Ramee Group’s emphasis on delivering exceptional guest experiences, how do you maintain consistency across your F&B outlets and hotel properties?
Show up every day. Make sure your team understands how much you value consistency, so they know that you mean it when you mean consistency, right? I think I personally like to work with the team. If my product isn’t consistent, I’ll make sure it comes to a point that is consistent, and I’ll make sure I know the difference between my product and what isn’t my product. And as long as you show up every day, you understand what you want to be consistent, your team will kind of understand that as well. It’s an ongoing process. It never stops. But if you have a team that can implement this with you, so you don’t have to be everywhere at once, that’s the beauty of it, and that’s the beauty of growing a team and a family together with the same vision. Consistency is a day to day job, and it’s a never ending job. It’s the one of the only things that can tire you out. But honestly, if you love the hospitality industry, it’s fun, because in consistency, you can do R & D as well.
What role does collaboration play in your leadership style, and how do you foster a collaborative environment within Ramee Group?
Okay, so I think this question, you mean collaboration in terms of collaborating with my team members or people from outside, either way, we have a very open collaborative style. Everyone’s input or ideas are welcome as long as they fit into the concept narrative and the direction we’re trying to get into. So if we put it, if I put it in a metaphor, right, we set a simple direction, and everyone kind of follows flows into that direction. As long as it flows in that direction, then a lot of input and ideas can flow about, and we can R&D, and we can test, we can try things out. So collaboration is always welcome with all kinds of ideas within and outside the company as well. And as long as we get to where we need to go. It’s a wonderful thing to have.
How do you see the role of technology evolving in the hospitality industry, and what technological innovations are you considering for Ramee Group?
So technology with the hospitality industry, I think, is still lacking in terms of what we could do eventually, at some point, I know technology will be utilized, especially with generative, generative AI, or perhaps data, how we use guest data, how we analyze guest data, but we’re still a bit lacking. I feel like once at some point, if someone does catch up, it will be very interesting to see what we could do with the guest experience minimizing time. Let’s say hotel check-ins. There’s already automated hotels that exist, so basically you’re minimizing time. You’d save the cost of labor, but at the same time, there’s nothing that can replace a human experience to sell you a product or make you feel a certain way when you do check in, like a machine can’t do that. So it could go either way. But the thing is, hospitality will definitely be growing in a positive direction when it comes to technology. What I look forward to is what we can do with guest profiles or preferences in terms of their experience before they even step foot into the property, right? That would be something that would be really fun, if I can already know your allergies, your dietary preferences, if it’s your birthday, on a level that I can implement immediately, within 24 hours to make you have a special day without even you letting me know, that’s the beauty of technology, I think, in the future with us.
What advice would you give to aspiring professionals in the hospitality and F&B sectors who want to make a mark in the industry?
Well, I’m 31 I don’t even think I should be giving advice. But if you do ask, I would say, fall in love with what you do, or else you’re going to hate the job. There’s no time limit, there’s no shift on and off. And if you do fall in love, then you’re lucky, and it’s never ending. You can have fun with it. Have confidence, have faith, be passionate and always keep learning right. Always keep learning about what is new in the industry. What if you’re in the kitchen, you can learn about what ingredients you can work with, what can you do in the kitchen that’s new? Always be creative and understand that you don’t need to have a limit on your creativity and experiment with the products you’re working with, whether you’re on the floor, the kitchen or the bar, you can always do something, and you can always keep learning and growing in this industry. That’s one of the cool things about it. You don’t hit a ceiling in terms of skill and education or knowledge, and there’s always people you can learn from and just be confident in everything you do. I would say confidence is key in a human business.
As a recipient of multiple industry awards, what do you believe are the key factors that contribute to achieving excellence in the hospitality and F&B sectors?
As a recipient of multiple industry awards, key factors, honestly we are getting recognised for something which is nice but I still think we have a long way to go in terms of the recognition that Ramee Hospitality should receive or hotel should receive. What we have so far, I am grateful for and I’m glad, but I think until we are set as a pinnacle or a standard of Hospitality run, the world coming from India and the Middle East, that is the notch that I would really celebrate, but so far everything is great. I think the key is that our goal is much higher, so we keep moving forward and we’re not happy. I’m not happy. We’re not grateful but we are not happy with this, we are aiming much higher and that’s the key, we keep going so.