Hyderabad & HICC

Sometimes you turn a corner and come across something completely unexpected. This is what happened to me this week at Hyderabad.

We had landed from Delhi to participate in an international conference. The venue was called Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) - it sounded grand but drivers from the largest rental-car company in Hyderabad had no idea where it was located.

We strayed for over 5km in Cyberabad before somebody insisted that the venue was actually inside a barren looking trade-fair area. We had been turned away from the gates earlier by guards who told us that nothing was going on inside. There were no signboards or banners anywhere to direct the 1500 people expected to attend the event.

As it turned out, HICC was inside the trade fair area, tucked away deep inside, behind Novotel - a 5-star hotel. Being one of the many exhibitors, we had to enter the large building from the rear, and once inside, the signs were not too encouraging. In a massive hall, people were still creating a podium for an event that was to take place within two hours. The exhibition area was barren, except for a few workers trying to fix electricity connections for the stalls.

Within an hour the scene was completely transformed. Thousands of chairs had been arranged, the podium had become picture-perfect and the sound and lighting system were functioning flawlessly. Obviously we were at no ordinary venue.

I learnt later that HICC was developed and owned by a joint venture between Emaar Properties PJSC, Dubai and Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd. Managed by Accor; world's largest hospitality business operator. It was conceived, designed and created to handle small meetings of 50 people to large scale events for 5000 people. The convention centre formally opened just last year, with the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas convention on January 7th 2006.

The large pillar-free internal hall (6,480 sq. meters) could be partitioned into six halls in an open capacity, holding up to 400 tables in Banquet setting and 6000 in cocktail. The pre function foyer area exceeded 6500 sq meters. The Centre has mobile operable walls, which when expanded accommodates up to 5000 people. The mobile operable walls were soundproof, built in the US and had been covered with Teak and Silk.

On the third and top floor of this complex were exclusive board rooms that remained on 24-hour stand-by. From here you could look through the sheet glass windows and see all the signs of a booming economy - construction of apartment complexes, hotels, and highways in areas surrounding Kukatpally.

The complex was manned by around 200 personnel in neat, color-coded uniforms (black for housekeeping, white for F&B, officers in suits). One of them confided that a few weeks ago, Schneider Electric had booked the entire hotel & HICC for five days and paid a total of Rs. 29 Crores!

He also added with a tinge of pride that the only thing Indian in the entire complex were the carom boards in the staff club!