Mr. Dileep Kumar.P.I has been appointed as the General Manager of The Leela Raviz Kovalam. Prior to this, he was associated with Crowne Plaza Kochi as Executive Assistant Manager. He will be responsible for the overall direction of the 183-rooms luxury unit which will include operational setup, business development and strategic planning.
Incidentally this is a home coming for Mr. Dileep, one of the vibrant hospitality Sales & Marketing professionals, Kerala has ever produced, He started his career with ITDC’s Ashok Group as Assistant Manager Marketing & Hotel Sales in Delhi; subsequently he was moved to Regional Sales Office Chennai and Ashok Hotel Bangalore. While leaving ITDC during the disinvestment of their hotel division, he was heading the Sales & Marketing department of Kovalam Ashok Beach Resort (Present Leela Raviz Kovalam), the first five star hotel of Kerala. He continued to head the department under the new management of the property and played a major role in rebranding of the hotel as Le Meridien Kovlam Beach. Later he moved to Le Meriden Cochin, where he held the position of Associate Director of Sales.
The illustrious career of twenty eight years in Sales and Marketing of Five Star hotels, Dileep’s experience spread across public, private and multinational organizations. Prior to joining Crowne Plaza Kochi , part of International hotel chain IHG, Dileep was with The Oberoi Group where he headed the Sales & Marketing department of Trident Cochin and The Oberoi Motor Vessel Vrinda for about seven years.
Mr. Dileep joined the tourism industry when Kerala celebrated ‘Tourism Awareness Year in 1990’. The tourism in Kerala after getting the industry status was gearing up for a quantum leap at that time. The ‘Visit India Year 1991’ and later the branding of Kerala as ‘God’s own Country’ further fueled the robust growth of Tourism in Kerala. Dileep Kumar P.I. when he joined India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) during the above period selling hotels was new thing to Kerala market. The regular question he used to face from clients, especially from corporate world was ‘What do you sell in hotels?’ an era were no emails, internet or mobile phones exists.
Learning is a never ending process for Dileep. He is a science graduate from University College Trivandrum and took his MBA degree from the School of Management Studies of Cochin University of Science and Technology. He has done his higher studies in Tourism and Hospitality Management from the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Salzburg, Austria with scholarship through Ministry of HRD, Government of India. Dileep is the first batch student of Post Graduate Diploma in Tourism and Travel Management at Kerala Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (KITTS). He is also an alumni of Institute of Journalism, Thiruvananthapuram. Currently he is learning Sanskrit language from SamskritaBharati, Kochi Centre to do a deeper study of the Philosophical work written in Sanskrit by Sri Narayana Guru. Interestingly Dileep belongs to the same family of Sri Narayana Guru at Chempazanthy.
Dileep is married to Chitra who is Senior Higher Secondary School Teacher in English and they have two kids, son Agneyan and daughter Dakshina.
