Making India's first luxury rainforest retreat come alive. Repositioning Coorg.
To wake up and not smell the Coffee was how we defined our mission. On hand 18 months away was a luxury address coming up on 180 acres of pristine rainforest in the south west ghats of India. A new address in Coorg, India's hitherto, coffee country.
Read on about how design thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, imagination and brand development at a molecular level led to 26 innovations and India's first luxury rainforest destination.
Destination marketing and place brand development is a continuum. And more often than not venture outside the box.
For our core adventurers who spearheaded the brand, experience, creative and marketing efforts, it took us nearly 1 and a half years to switch on a rainforest and literally bring 26 secrets of the rainforest alive to reposition Coorg (South Western district of India) and establish the Taj Coorg. This included conceiving the entire customer experience journey and the brand drivers.
Staid operating standards, manuals or “by the done” rule books of opening hotels don’t often work beyond the line of normal. Experiences, stories and content had to be reimagined, built on ground and painstakingly brought alive.
Our deep belief is that venture and experience design must be rooted in solving clear business problems and challenges. That is what design thinking must propel.
3 business challenges we set out to address
- The retelling of a “told” destination – given the fact that Coorg had been a a plantation destination for quite some time. So what law of positioning do we apply?
- Ensuring that we upped the ante for one of the country’s foremost luxury brands (Vivanta and Taj). Bringing alive barefoot luxury with relevant experiences and content.
- Getting both the domestic markets and international tourism source markets interested in Coorg which was hitherto a domestic destination principally for the Bangalore market.
Our adventure in summary
Coffee Country and plantation themes were taken. Our plan was to build a brand new compelling "Rainforest" experience with its retinue of secrets right in the middle of the plantation county of Coorg. The vision was to make guests check into not a resort, but into a luxe rainforest.
We built a private museum, a 3000 sq feet ceramics studio with Clay Station, imagined foresty cocktails with a master mixologist, created an industry first private adventure label with Muddy Boots that teaches Machaan making, flintstone fires and survival skills, documented history with historian Mr. Belliappa, designed and built the birding experience with Dr. Narsimhan, scripted organic experiences, conceived unique dining experiences like the 101 Lanterns and the Nook Dining and created the farm to table food story.
Often destinations need to find their own tune, and especially Coorg which has its own rhythm as a destination. We initiated the Deep India project with Sony Music and got two time - Grammy winners Deep Forest to perform live at the rainforest and compose a custom track Viva Madikeri which hit the top notes on Apple itunes. And finally wrapped it up with conceiving and producing a “Secrets of the Forest” integrated campaign and film. With tons of global awards and listings, record revenues and one of the highest ADR in the country, the rainforest had finally checked in and the Taj Coorg has never looked back. For us this was an experience that was as rich as the forest.
It is true. Culture makes brands work unfailingly. Most often when content, experience and design meet at the corner.
The living museum.
Pottery Studio and the Earthcraft IP for in residence ceramic programs.
Backpacker Diaries - first of its kind private adventure label in partnership with Muddy Boots.
The Madikeri star birds experience & bird walks in partnership with an ornithologist.
Ideating and designing unique dining experiences, 101 lanterns.
The Nook Dining at the Buddha Garden. An epiphany.
History dining with the resident historian. The gracious Dr. Belliappa.
Wellness rituals reimagined five floors up a rainforest.
Forest cocktails, locavore farm to table, private label coffee Content, content, content.
An experience map to keep track. An innovation in its own right.
The coup deep in the forest. In partnership with Sony Music. The birth of Deep India and Viva Madikeri, a chart topper on iTunes.
Creatively spearheading the phygital reveal of a rainforest with many secrets.
The final testimony - The rainforest finally checked in across global media.
The resort and experience won the most prestigious awards globally, 14 of them to be precise and still counting.
Taj Coorg is now universally hailed as a “Rainforest” retreat by guests, media and influencers thereby creating a new category in Coorg as a destination
The resort clocks an astounding ADR of INR. 26,000 per night and more 9 years back when it was unheard of.
Wide international acclaim from luxury travel influencers, media, travel operators and hodophiles.
This adventure of ours was about reimagining a destination. Painstakingly drafting strategic boards, understanding markets, travellers & personas, designing the customer experience journey, building experiences on ground and content on cloud and through it all, imparting a singular creative direction to truly raise the bar in a destination that already was high.
There are many other yet to be told chapters that added to the magic of this rainforest brand - inspirations, back stories, epiphanies, discoveries and a constant theme of going against convention. Probably for another time.
NYUCT Design Labs is an interdisciplinary house of Venture Design. It blueprints, designs and builds ventures, brands, IPs, destinations and innovations from 0 to 1 and beyond. With 188 years of collective wisdom and experience within the team, it operates at the intersection of strategy, design, ideas, technology and imagination. To build the better, make the amazing.
Should you have a venture in mind or an idea on a napkin, do give us a shout. There might be a great adventure in the making.