Popcorn luxe

You have booked two tickets for the 9 pm show and as you and your companion step out of the house, a chauffer-driven German luxury car is in attendance for the drive to the cinema. A manager opens the car’s door at the venue and escorts you to the box office. No, you don’t have to stand in queue. The manager collects the tickets, and ushers you in.

As you sink into a plush reclining seat, a waiter hands the menu. You select your favourite sushi, which will be prepared by a Japanese chef. The waiter promises to serve 30 minutes into the movie, by when you will be snug under a velvet blanket.

Post the show and a sumptuous dinner, you two are driven back home in the same luxury car.

At PVR’s Director’s Cut cinema in south Delhi’s Ambience Mall, customers have already been through a part of this luxury experience. A few of the finer details, like the chauffer-driven limousine, are being worked on.

“Somewhere I have felt that if you push the envelope and give quality to consumers, they are not discouraged by the incremental price,” says Ajay Bijli, chairman & managing director of PVR Ltd, India’s largest multiplex chain.

While a seat in Director’s Cut, which was launched in 2011, costs upward of ₹ 1,000, a bento box of vegetarian sushi comes at ₹900; top it with ₹600 for the non-vegetarian variant.

The Japanese dish is supplied from the kitchen of Simply Sushi, the restaurant that was launched by PVR late last year. It is curated by Yutaka Saito, the Japanese chef who, in his earlier stint, made The Leela Palace’s Megu restaurant popular among the Capital’s elite. “The cost (of the bento box) is not much if you compare it to eating sushi in a five-star restaurant,” adds Sanjeev Kumar, joint managing director, PVR Ltd.

Luxury might be incidental for Bijli, who sells tickets at about 10 per cent premium over his nearest competitor. The entrepreneur recently moved into his new house, which he has been building for 14 years in south Delhi. Till now the family was living at its ancestral mansion on Rohtak Road. Looking for the perfect design, Bijli had changed 60 architects and brought down the house four times, before he was satisfied with the present form.

At the same time, Bijli’s almost monkish eye for the detail has helped PVR build the only luxury brands, including Director’s Cut and Gold Class, in the Indian exhibition business. And that has helped the ₹1,900-crore company’s business. While all the exhibition stocks might be rallying on the Bombay Stock Exchange, thanks to the good showing by Bollywood this year, PVR’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) per screen of 6.5 per cent is unmatched in the industry.

“At present, a little over five per cent of our revenues come from the luxury brands. That can increase to 30 per cent in five years,” says Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Cinemas. Thirty two of the company’s 553 screens have the luxury tag. Another 106 screens are bracketed under PVR Premiere, the premium brand. While Mumbai will host Simply Sushi’s second outlet, Bijli plans to offer gourmet dishes in all the Gold Class screens across the country.

Bijli’s luxury push is fronted by Renaud Palliere, CEO – Luxury Cinema Collection, PVR Cinemas. “The execution has been difficult. For instance, earlier we had 160 items in the Director’s Cut menu. It is down to 35,” says Palliere who had spent 18 years in the Hong Kong hospitality industry. The slimmer menu lists food under three sections — forks, fingers and spoons, and excludes anything that requires cutting to minimise the use of cutlery. “We don’t want the noise to interfere in the movie,” says Palliere.

Apart from Saito, Bijli has hired chefs and managers from premier hotel chains including Hyatt and Oberoi. One of them is Mayank Tiwari, an executive chef, who was recently sent to Paris for training.

The focus on high-end offering has helped Bijli attract luxury brands to advertise on his screens. A vertical that was pushed by Dutta, on-screen advertising generated over ₹200 crore in revenue for PVR in 2015-16, the most for any exhibition company in the country. “We have 75 million discerning customers who visit our cinemas every year. Along with that, we take our insight in premium segment to our advertisers,” says Dutta. The three German luxury car brands — Audi, BMW and Mercedes — advertised with PVR in the 2015 festival season.

Bijli will be relieved to see the numbers. Not all his shareholders were amused by PVR’s spend on screen, often higher than the industry average. Personally, the focus has complemented his fascination for premium brands — Sony, when he was growing up, and now Apple. “I have been fascinated by companies charging a premium and still having the highest sales,” says the 48-year-old. PVR is now catching up with that global trend.

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