In conversation with Firasat Hussain, Managing Director of “Four Seasons”

Explain the concept behind FOUR SEASONS?
The Concept behind Four Seasons is in the name of the Company, The need to serve all the Four Different Seasons of a Man’s Life:
1st Season: When He is a child, he has different tastes and reasons to Holiday.
2nd Season: When He is an Adult, the Reasons to holiday are more dynamic and adventurous
3rd Season: When He is a Family Man with responsibilities and his reasons to holiday are for his family.
4th Season: When He is in his last phase of life, old age. He has different reasons to holiday,
These important reasons to holiday have been the concept and cause of Origin of Four Seasons Holidays.

How was the journey so far? Were there any challenges that you have faced in bringing up the brand?
We started with a very small vision of serving only to a particular group of Customers who were members of resorts by providing exchange services; gradually the need increased and so did the vision. It was not a smooth journey as Holiday Memberships is the last priority for a common man, but the products we have are economically tangible and make it viable for a common man to avail holiday trips even in the toughest of his financial conditions.
Earlier, A “holiday” to a common man meant to be an Expensive Luxury, but now our members find it an important routine of their life at least once in a year.

What is the scope of the industry, in which you specializes i.e. hospitality, in India?
Today The Industry’s compounded annual growth is around 20%. While the number of Timeshare properties to come up is expected to double within 3 years, today the organised Timeshare industry is valued at Rs.200 Crores (Rs.2 billion) with over 2 Lakhs members. As long as the Country is Touring & Timesharing; FSH commits to serve the tourists with its Services

Does the competition around you affect your strategies for growth?
With so many Travel portals, and many other sources of travel arrangements it definitely can be a tough course to prove our existence, but Four Seasons Holidays concepts are very unique and tailor made only by first hand experiences, this keeps us apart from the competitors.
Our products are one of its kind in the country so we can consider that we do not have competitors and we are the only one in the race.

Why have you chosen franchise route for expansion of your networks? What is the current status of your presence?
Initially we had planned to expand to other parts of our State AP, by setting up branch offices and we have 1 branch in Warangal and 1 in Vishakapatnam, but it is not easy for the company to set up branches all over the country as it is tough to maintain and manage the day to day operations.
Our Core competency is to provide hospitality services and we wish to concentrate on it, opening branch offices will compel us to involve in all day to day activities and management and deviate us from the focus.
Currently we have a offices in Hyderabad, Warangal, Vishakapatnam, Thiruvannamalai (Tamil Nadu) and Bilaspur Chattis Garh.

What qualities and requirement you seek in a franchisee?
We need serious business partners and not financiers. We would like to share our vision with like minded business oriented professionals who would like to bring in a new trend of Holidaying and travelling in their Cities / States. Money shall follow.

How important is it to provide training and support to your franchisees?
Training and support is very important, as the products being unique and very first of its kinds, there needs to be full time support and a full fledged training before the operations takes off.

What are the pitfalls for which franchisees needs to watch for in franchise business?
Franchisees must never false pitch or mis-comment to any customer any time, if the need and desire is created, there is no need of any false commitments to sell any of our products.

Where would you like you see FOUR SEASONS in next five years?
We wish to have a franchisee office or a branch office in every city in India and a strong member base.