Cinnamon Stays For The Business Traveler!

A few months ago, when we talked of Ram, our friend who travels frequently on work, he spoke to us about how he was taken in with the concept of staying at a homestay instead of a hotel. His idea of having a Workcation seems to be “working” for him. Having stayed in a few homestays across the country in the past couple of months, he is now a happy business traveler!

We decided to list a few reasons as to why you may want to consider Cinnamon Stays as your preferred choice of homestay whenever you are traveling on business (or on workcation) to Gurgaon.

1. A Homestay compatible with a Business Traveler.

We understand what it means to be traveling on business all the time. While you may be looking for home-like comfort, you desire consistency of service as well. We at Cinnamon work towards making that experience special for you. We are NOT A REGULAR guest house. We are a premium homestay with rooms that are spacious, homely and comfortable. Each of our rooms are themed and every element in the house is curated to serve the sensibilities of the Indian corporate executive.

2. Safety and Security : Gated campus

The homestay located in Sector 48 on Sohna Road and Sector 50 ( Golf Course Ext), is a gated society. With 24 hours security and CCTV surveillance, it is absolutely safe. Ideal for single women business travelers. It is also a great option to bring your family with you while you are on a business trip. 

3. Close to Business Towers & Corporate parks

A stone’s throw away from the business and corporate parks of Gurgaon, it saves you travel and traffic woes. Located on Sohna Road, the homestay is easily accessible to all amenities - corporate or family requirements available on Sohna Road

(Picture Courtesy - stayiningurgaon.com)

 

4. Fast Billing and Payment

In the fast world of corporate travel, Cinnamon makes it easy for you to Fast track the process of billing and payment. The Express option helps you immediately close the account of your stay at flexible hours (considering late night flights or odd hours of travel).

(Picture Courtesy - kbelloncall.com)

5. Company payment option

The homestay can tie up with your Company directly so you have a cashless transaction while staying at Cinnamon.

6. 0% escalation to HR /Admin of your Company

We are the No.1 B&B on Trip Advisor for the past 7 years! One of the main reasons why corporates choose us is there is ZERO escalation of any sort to the HR / Admin department with regards to the quality and stay experience.

7. 
   Empathic Hosts - Cinnamon is managed by Manish ( > 20 yrs of corporate experience) who understands what the corporate traveler needs. Shilpi - an HR professional & Executive Coach gets the pain points of employee travel thereby handling this area very well. The hosts have even handled medical emergencies for guests in the past.
   
   

8. Business Amenities

Cinnamon is not just about a few rooms to stay. Cinnamon allows a work environment to thrive (after all, the hosts work from here!). There are enough work tables, Free wi-fi internet and a spacious meeting space for business huddles. The sit outs allow the working mind some fresh thinking. Cinnamon allows a unique opportunity to network with other business travelers from across the world.

 

9. Flexibility

Cinnamon is flexible with breakfast timings, check-ins and check-outs. Corporate travellers can host small meetups, business lunches and do brainstorms. Of course all within the limitations on a homestay.

10. Serves Home-made and Nutritious food

For the modern day health conscious professionals, Cinnamon prepares delicious yet healthy home cooked food. We customize food requirements as per the traveler’s medical or gastronomical needs. 

Cinnamon Stays is the perfect ‘Unhotel’ for the business traveller in Gurgaon! We look forward to hosting corporate events, single women business travelers and off-sites. Check out  www.cinnamonstays.in or write to us at cinnamonstays@gmail.com  Shilpi - 9560550015, Manish - 9650400466  @cinnamonstays facebook.com/CinnamonStays

10 Things That Every Homestay Must Have!

While a lot of people (we included) have been talking about homestays being the preferred choice these days amongst travelers of every kind, many of us may face the dilemma of “how” to go about choosing the right homestay.

The word of mouth reference from friends seems like the best way to ensure a delightful and safe stay, there may be times when we have to make choices on our own in a new place.

As travelers, for us, the choice of homestays is ever increasing in the Indian market. We decided to give you a heads up to 10 things you must look at while zeroing down to any homestay.

1.   Conveniently located

The location of the homestay has to be convenient. Easily accessible from public transport, market areas and the city. Unless you are specifically looking for being away from the city, the location must be a place where local commutation is easy.

 

(Picture Courtesy - www.photopin.com)

2.   Reviews are available online with reference checks

 

(picture courtesy - www.photopin.com, www.airbnb.com) 

 

The homestay must have reviews available for you to check online. A Tripadvisor rating always holds good in short listing the places you are looking at. You may want to read reviews from the likes of tripadvisor, lonely planet and other popular Online Travel Agents (OTAs)

3.   Warm and easily accessible hosts

The hosts of the homestay generally live in the property. This is a benchmark to decide a good place for yourself. Hosts should be warm and easy to approach. At the very outset, while shortlisting, you could check how early they respond to your mail, how easily are they available telephonically and are they able to provide you with relevant answers to your queries.

4.   First hand local information

The place must have people who live or work there providing you with information about the place, culture, commute, places to visit and everything “local” about the city that you are visiting. Travel tips, guides and quick trivia should be part of the conversation you have with the hosts or the staff.

(Picture Courtesy - www.alamy.com)

  

5.   Homestay must have a soul of its own.

The home in any city reflects local culture and flavor. The homestay should must have a “feel” and “sense” of being part of the city. The décor, aesthetics and interiors must make you feel “at home” and a “part” of the city.

  

6.   Comfortable rooms of 3 * hotel standards

The rooms must be well ventilated, clean, hygienic and like a 3 * property if not better. The rooms should be comfortable with basic amenities and should give you a very “homey” feeling.

7.   Breakfast and home made meals

The concept is that of a bed and breakfast so check the kind of breakfast menu being served. Is there a flexibility of having the meal you prefer or is there a set menu that you have to go by. Check if there is an option of the other meals of the day. If so, are home made meals being served or meals are ordered in.

8.   Flexibility of using amenities

Check the amenities within the homestay. There could be availability of parking, play area, a meeting room, wifi. There are some places that even provide you with local transport etc. Have a look at what is being offered and check the usage fee.

9.   Crowd friendly but not crowded

The homestay should be friendly towards its guests and should use discretion with regards to the choice of guests it is hosting. Thereby, ensuring safety of other guests. It should not be utterly crowded that you do not feel comfortable.

10.               Privacy but not Private

The homestay for all reasons is a house open to visitors. However, it should ensure your privacy amongst all the other guests. In the meanwhile, it should also not be too private that you are just a guest and don’t get an opportunity to be part of the family hosting you.

Armed with these basic tips, homestays are a great choice for vacationers, business travelers, students, solo travelers, women travelers. With the statistics all in favor of this growing segment in the hospitality industry, you can be assured that homestays are here to “stay”!

Friends of Cinnamon

When I first met her, she was a client and I, a recruitment consultant. What began as a professional relationship over 10 years ago is now something that I can proudly call “friendship”. Meeting Shilpi and getting to know her during my professional relationship was always endearing. When she decided to move from Mumbai to Gurgaon, I understood that I was not just losing an excellent client but would be missing her chirpiness and enterprising temperament.

No sooner had she moved to Gurgaon, she excitedly told me about her journey towards being a hospitality entrepreneur. She launched Cinnamon Stays. When her entrepreneurial venture started to see success, I was extremely happy to see her grow from a single homestay in Gurgaon to a silver startup in Varanasi.  As luck would have it, I too moved to Delhi albeit only for two years and we could catch up more often. I paid her a visit and the full day that I spent with her in Cinnamon revealed to me much more than I thought I knew about her and Cinnamon.

Cinnamon has a soul, it is not just a place you go to stay. It’s a place where you “Sense” and you “feel”. It is a community of guests, travelers, small entrepreneurs all of whom rely heavily on the social media. I was amazed to see that magic of being connected via social media with interesting and like minded people who walk in as guests and walk out as friends.

One day, as we were on a usual chat up call, she excitedly told me about a program called “Friends of Cinnamon”. She told me that this was a unique initiative started by her to acknowledge all her friends who had been a support in making both Cinnamon Stays and Granny’s Inn where it is today. She explained that her friends played the role of evangelists and somehow contributed in making the business flourish.

“Friends of Cinnamon” kick started with an aim to create a safe and reliable network of people who would be guests at both the homestays purely on the basis of referrals and word of mouth.

As she unfolded the initiative, I could not help but wonder how important the safety of her guests was to her. As a friend, I have always spoken so much about her and her work that, invariably some of my friends have booked in her home stays and have had a wonderful experience. In order to acknowledge the same, she decided that for every referral that would walk in as a guest, I would be rewarded monetarily. My work would be very simple and informal. Much of it I was already doing, being the storyteller for Cinnamon and Granny’s Inn. Only, I needed to do it in a structured way, over social media, over my network - personal and professional, connect with travel bloggers and carry out small curated events to spread the word. This seemed like such a fun idea to me. This was no hard sell, only pure sharing with like minded people.

It has now been over a year since I formally became an FOC! I have had the most interesting interactions with other FOCs, have met people who I would never had in the normal course and built “friendships” with some who share the same interests as me. FOC has recently extended its scope as the business also extends. The Unhotel group as they are called is now seeking new properties to bring under their umbrella from Corbett to Goa, Ladakh to Coorg. Give them the same soul that they have. In case we come across any property fit to be an Unhotel (Cinnamon and Grannys), we can just drop in the reference to Shilpi and she will work her charm.

In case this sounds exciting to you, do go through the websites www.cinnamonstays.in, www.grannysinn.in and write in either to Shilpi or Manish at cinnamonstays@gmail.com for more details on how to enrol in the ‘Friends of Cinnamon’ program. Believe me, there is a whole new world out there for us to seek and grow

Workcation - The Future Of Business Travel

Just the other day I was talking to my class mate, Ram, now a Senior leader in E&Y, who travels the world over on business and was currently visiting Gurgaon from Bangalore. I told him he just had to visit us at "Cinnamon". Though he was on a tight business schedule, the offer of a complete home made meal closed the deal. 

 

Our “catching up” went on till the wee hours of the morning and we asked him to retire in the spare room. We told him that he could stay with us as long as he wanted, which he denied since he was already booked in a hotel for the whole period that he would spend in Gurgaon. Later that evening I received a call from him asking if he could make our place his permanent “business” stay. I was more than happy to have a buddy around. My curiosity piqued and I asked him what made him change his mind. Why a home stay when he could be put up in the best of the hotels? To this, he rattled off a few points that I thought I could share with you!

1.  Feeling of being home - Ram and many others who travel between cities, between continents and between different time zones are always missing “home” and their family. An evening spent at Cinnamon, Ram realized that whilst he did feel relaxed in hotels, it never gave him the feeling of being home. The informal set up, the home made meal, he never felt this close to home in any of his business stays before.

2.  Shut out from the office - According to Ram, whenever he travels, he seems to find himself working in the hotel at the end of the day. That, he says is very tiresome so much so that he doesn’t feel fresh the next day. He shared that the other evening, he was able to relax and partly shut out his mind from work that has no end. Even though he hardly slept for a few hours, he was fresh the next day. He felt that the shutting himself out from work environment can happen only when you are at home.

 

3.   Live with the locals - Being a pucca Bengalurian(read south Indian), Ram said that people at work and at the hotel were forever making him feel comfortable with the kind of food that he ate everyday or assisting him at shopping. Ram felt he never could sense what it was like to be a Dilliwala. Having spent time with us, he interacted with our caretakers and other staff and he had a jolly time trying to understand them and they him. Hilarious anecdote this, but we can keep that for a different time. 

4.  Real recommendations - A business travel is also an opportunity to look around the city you go to. Post work, there are times when one can look around and explore the city. Whilst a hotel gives you all the “must do” things, many a times, one misses out on the “experience” of the city. Thus a real time recommendation is a must. Which, in fact, is given mostly by the people who live there! Home stays with their expertise can provide you with the exact recommendations as per your need and interest.

5.    Long stays - Staying long in hotels can really be just that…very long!... a hotel gives you the pleasures of being pampered and live luxuriously yet it can be very exhausting to come back to a small room especially when the business stay is more than a week. At this time a home stay provides you with the space, the comfort and the luxury of being yourself while at work.

6.  Family can join in - Having the family on a workcation really works wonders! A homestay can provide the best place for the family to be together in a new place. The routine remaining the same!..its a home just in another city.

7.    New friendships - A homestay can open the doors to new friendships and networking with the people who you stay with. At times they are known while at others, it may lead to forging new relationships and friendships that can last life long.

So, next time you are travelling for business, you could give a homestay a try. Actually, a homestay geared towards a proper Workcation - one that offers the productive space of a hotel but the comfort and relaxed atmosphere of a home. “Cinnamon Stays” in Gurgaon is one such option.


Picture Courtesy - #Cinnamonstays #Gurgaon #No1onTripadvisor