‘We Aim To Become Numero Uno By 2015’

The idea of a spa is rejuvenating in itself. When this is coupled with the age-old Ayurvedic therapy, the result can be more than rejuvenation. This is one of the aims of Kerala Ayurvedic Health Spa, a unit of Kerala Vaidyashala Pvt (I) Ltd — to bring about a synchronisation between rejuvenation, lonegevity and self realisation. The Kerala Vaidyashala (I) Pvt Ltd was initially started by the Kuroop family more than 33 years back as a propreitory group. In a span of three decades, the demand for Ayurvedic therapies, has gone through a sea change in the country, and so has the targets, objectives and the growth of the group. However, it was only when Harshjeet Kuroop, the current Managing Director, took over the reins of the company in 1996 that the organisation began to expand in the country. Kuroop speaks to Nayantara Som about the evolution of the the Ayurvedic Centre from being a small charity institute to an organisation which believes in becoming the numero uno in Ayurveda in the country

Since the Ayurvedic market was still in its nascent stage three decades back, how did the idea of setting up a spa first come up to the Kuroop family?

My grandfather was a retired police officer in the Madras region. He belonged to the Kunhirama Kuroop family of Kerala. After suffering from a stroke, he was recommended by relatives to avail of Allopathy treatments which was easy and suitable to modern life. Moreover, the British in those days had supressed the growth of Ayurveda. However, my grandfather wanted to start this concept of Ayurvedic therapies. He then throughly studied this field and then launched the Kerala Vaidyashala in Kerala in November 1973. However, at that time, these therapies were meant only for the poor and the small cottage industies in and around Kerala. So, basically it was started initially as a charity institute. It then branched out from Kerala. Outside Kerala, the spa started off in Mumbai in 1997. The niche customers were from the corporate, the Bollywood world, the IT and the BPO industries suffering from stress and insomina.

What were the apprehensions before setting up the Ayurvedic spas?

When the spas were launched in the metros, we were extremely worried about the competition from the multinationals and big brands specialising in this area. In the various press interviews that I had attended at that time, people would throw the same challenging questions at me — Reebok and Adidas are coming with the latest gadgets of massage and therapies, how are you going to face them with the traditional oil massages and brass utensils? I would just answer that I have full confidence in Ayurvedic therapies. This is a proven technique of science which is 5,000-year-old. It can never fail.

Can you give us an estimate about the growth rate of Kerala Ayurvedic Health Spa over the years?

The growth rate of Kerala Vaidyashala for the past 10 years was tremendous. We have been growing in leaps and bounds both in terms of the number of centres and the volume in trade and revenue. We are growing by an average of 33 per cent per annum. There has also been a 25 per cent rise in the total number of centres across the country. In Mumbai itself there are five centres spread across the city. The turnover of the company has been approximately Rs 2 crore. By the end of the year, our expected turn over will be 300 per cent more than last year.

At present, which are the hotels and resorts which have tie-ups with your organisation?

We have tied up with eight to ten major hotels and resorts in the country. We have tie ups with hotels like Park Plaza, Best Western, Sinclairs, Sun n Sands, Golds Gym, Surya Palace, Fidalgo and Ram Sukh. The centres in places frequented by tourists like Kerala and Goa are the popular centres. As mentioned earlier, in Mumbai itself we have five centres. In fact, this year we will see Rajasthan and Agra also emerging as poular centres. Perhaps this attraction and increase in revenue from these places is due to the popularity of Indian tourism and Ayurvedic therapies world wide.

To set up a new centre in a new place altogether, what marketing stratergies do you adopt?

We do not have a fixed marketing strategy. The marketing stratergies are generaly adopted according to the place. We usually take help of the media, mainly the print media. Above all, we put a lot of emphasis on market survey and research of the place where we set up the centre. We study the type of customers, the business that we might incur from such customers and subsequently the type of therapies that might be popular. For example, when we were opening our first centre in Mumbai, we used to do corporate presentation in all major companies, conducted seminars in various society and clubs because over there we wanted to cater to the business class. There are centres even in Dehradun and Ooty and other towns. Since the percentage of business class people is comparatively less in these places, we adopt a different strategy for such places. The prices are comparatively less, but number of people who are taking treatment are increasing by the day. The response for such places are satisfactory and encouraging.

What are the different packages offered in your spas?

The packages offered are of different types. When you say packages we have various time-tested, individual and corporate packages depending on the need of the hour, mostly people test our regular therapies and settle for packages of their choice. Our therapies are divided into two types — rejuvenation therapies and get-well therapies.

The rejuvenation therapies are more popular and attracts volumes of tourists. The get-well therapies are resticted to a low level. Tourist seasons generally spans between November, December and January. We even have season to season packages — our monsoon, summer, winter packages are most popular packages.

Apart from hotels and health resorts, can you tell us about the tie-ups with major hospitals like Apollo in the country?

Our tie up with hospitals are basicaly for a disease free world, and also to promote our get-well therapies. But hospitals like Apollo which is looking at long time plan too, are setting up preventive care unit. Nothing like Ayurveda for preventive care. It started with the Apollo Agra centre, Apollo Pankaj Hospital. There my meeting with Dr Pratap Reddy, the chairman of Apollo hospitals was very fruitful. He is a strong believer in Ayurveda. He wants to promote Ayurveda in a big way. Subesequently, we signed a pact with the Apollo Gleneagles, Kolkata where we, along with the Apollo group will want to promote Ayurvedic therapies in a big way.

How do you see your organisation five years down the line?

The main aim of the company, as of now, is to become the number one company in Ayurvedic therapies in India by the end of 2015. Five years down the line, I see my comapany speeding from the single lane to the five lane for the number one position, through proper planing and strategy. We even intend to open up our own chain of three star and four star hotels across the country. We are targeting the European market especially, to prove the efficacies of this 5,000-year-old Ayurvedic therapy. We even plan to expand to the Middle East. Our efforts are on, but we are in the process of choosing the write partner. We have an extremely strong national distribution network in the country. That is our biggest strength and we will make use of it.

nayantara@expresshealthcaremgmt.com