BY DEBAJYOTI CHAKRABORTY
KOLKATA | 24 MAY 2025
The date 23 May 2025 will be etched in the history of global hospitality industry as Dr. Suborno Bose launches the much hyped NamAIste – IIHM Hospitality GPT, The World’s First Generative AI – Powered knowledge engine, which is also part of a Make in India initiative and which is all set to become a game changer in the days to come.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Suborno Bose, Founder and Chairman of IIHM said that he was excited for this launch of this first ever hospitality GPT since the past few months.
“ Let me start by thanking my friend, Sanjoy Chatterjee , Director of entiovi, who has been working with us and who and me germinated the idea of doing this. And then it took us a lot of bumps, ups and downs. But today, I must take this opportunity to congratulate IIHM team and Sanjoy Chatterjee’s team, and the country, India, because we’ve also shown that we are capable of doing things which people think we can’t. And of course, the entire hospitality industry, who have been waiting to see the product and been a huge supporter of IIHM for the last 34 years. I think this is the time that we believe in our mission statement, which has two very important words. One is innovation, one is creativity. And today is another great, great example of how IIHM comes out of the traditional hospitality education to innovative education backed by AI, backed by technological emergence, and the industry is absolutely ready to accept it. That’s very important,”he added
He further added that he has been talking with his industry friends for the last few months, and they all are waiting for this to happen. From the education point of view, he thinks this is going to be a global mind changer because it’s not just a technological marvel, but also it’s a dawn of a new way of thinking.
“It’s a dawn of a new way of imagining things, or rather reimagining things, I must say, where people can think which they haven’t thought yesterday. In the hospitality industry, things are changing very rapidly both in India and globally. And a lot of people ask how AI can change the human factor and the answer is a resounding no, because our industry is best on people. It is a people industry, it is for the people who are the guests, is by the people, who are the associate, and this will always, always remain. So it’s always going to be an industry with a big human touch, a big smile, and a very, very strong, hospitable character. And AI is going to assist this to make sure that we actually do the customer’s expectation even more purposeful. And at the same time, as an industry, we can work and apply AI in different ways, like increasing revenues through booking engines, eliminate waste, and make sure that associates are working eight hours because the industry sometimes have overworked people, and many others. But this particular GPT is best for the students,” he added.
Mr. Sujay Gupta, Group Media Director of IIHM Group , while hosting the event was articulating very nicely and said that it is going to change the way that hospitality education would be taught in the future, not just in India, but in the world.
Very proud that this innovative initiative is made in India, made by Indians for the world. Nothing can be better than this as a gift from India to the world of hospitality. So absolutely excited and looking forward to take it on to the refinement level. And as it starts working, the app will start learning. and then we are going to put a lot of business analytics and which will help even the industry in a big way, not just the students,Dr. Suborno Bose said.
“But yes, it is just much more than just a knowledge bank It is something that people can re-imagine the education. It will be a very good tool for the teachers and the faculty members who possibly sometime go and teach. They don’t get time for the preparation. This will be a very quick kind of feedback from them about the next classes and they can teach better. Better education means better students, means better professionals for the industry. And I can see many of the industry stalwarts up there in the screen from all over the country. And from the world as well, I could see Neil Rippington from London joined in early morning. And this is definitely going to change the face of education, face of hospital education. And in near future, the face of how we do the business of hospitality. Because at IIHM we always teach the students not just hospitality management, we teach the students the business of hospitality. And that is where our money is. We put in a lot of investment in promoting that business of hospitality factor and this will definitely help us in that,”he added.
At this historic declaration all the 60 countries signed one AI protocol together with IIHM, all the 60 countries, and the representative of 60 countries, that this is the big, big AI declaration of embracing AI into hospitality.
“Planned to launch in the last month on the 24th of April, the International Hospitality Day, but due to the terror attack, forced to push it back by a few days. But never mind. Many congratulations to all the stakeholders, and many congratulations to our team at entiovi,”he added.
“So, this omni-cultural, omni-language platform, which is pretty unique. And the other, other industries, definitely will get some, you know, something from here. We are absolutely sure. Imagine a student in Bengali, in Bengal, writing a question about a Japanese culinary, and the answer is coming from Japanese documents, and he is getting the response in Bengali. the use case, which will take all the stakeholders of hospitality industry, use this knowledge base, be it students, be it educators, be it even guests, and of course, hoteliers. And it will be another thing just to share with you, this whole platform is built on open source technology. There is nothing goes as a license fee to anybody else on earth. So this is a totally built with open source,” Dr. Bose added.
“This GPT will be like a giant multiple library of different libraries across the world. You can enter into libraries in New York, in London, in Melbourne, in Sydney, in Delhi, in Colombo and what have you. It will be the repository of knowledge. It will be the repository of knowledge of everything that’s got to do with hospitality, hotels, food, wines. And this information is going to be exclusive. It’s going to be closed. It’s going to be available to the very, very exclusive cohort of people who will want to be privileged and we welcome them in as users of the IIHM, Namaste IIHM Hospitality GPT. they will not just be foot soldiers, they’ll be ambassadors, they’ll be academics, they’ll be students, they’ll be professors. And all of them will not only be contributors to the knowledge of this app, because at the end of the day, I mean, it’s much beyond an app, but this enterprise, this GPT, they’ll all be contributing to this with their information, with the repository of knowledge, with the research papers. So at the end of the day, when anyone goes into it, what comes out of it is going to be much, much more then what Google will give you, what any other AI app will give you, what any other GPT will give you. Because this is going to be exclusive. This is going to be predominant. This is going to be unique. And this is what we are going to launch today. It was a thought that expanded into a feeling and that expanded into a lot of energy that further expanded to a movement and today it has settled in to a grand reality which the world will see. This is also a reflection of what a mind with limitless possibilities can do. This is also a symbol of what thinking beyond the ordinary results in. This is also a symbol of the Vikasit Bharat emotion that Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi spoke of. This is also a proof and evidence that made in India is possible. And this Namaste IIHM Hospitality GPT is not just a made-in-India enterprise. It’s a made-for-the-world enterprise. It’s a GPT with heart. It’s a GPT that is inclusive. It’s a GPT that gets in the world to hear us,” Dr. Bose concluded in his speech.
Dignitaries and famous chefs from 60 countries were virtually present in this launching event on Friday. Celebity Chefs Sanjeev Kapoor and Ranbir Brar also thanked IIHM for this initiative in their virtual message and said that the students and entire hospitality fraternity will be enriched.
Smt. Sanjukta Bose, Director of IIHM was also present during the occasion.
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