Calangute, in North Goa is the fun capital of South-West India. Its beach attracts huge crowds, especially at night when the bars and food shacks do a roaring trade into the early hours and it is rumoured that up to 100,000 people gather on the beach to party the night away.
Fuse was first approached in 2013 to carry out the re-branding of this 135-room beach-side property for hotel owners Convention Hotels, based in Bangalore (or Bengaluru to give it its correct name). It was not until November 2014 however that we visited Goa and the design had to be delivered just weeks later in January 2015.
The hotel was only a couple of years old and so the brief was to create a maximum brand impact in the shortest possible time and to a very tight budget – so adding new layers rather than changing what was there. In addition to improvements to all the bedrooms and suites, the scheme also re-worked the restaurants, lobby, cafe, poolside areas and of course, a new Rock Shop was added.
We were permitted one major new feature – a giant mirror pool sign (right) which includes a 3m diameter stainless steel sphere made up of the lyrics to John Lennon’s song, ‘India’.
The work itself was delayed and the hotel re-opened under the Hard Rock banner a year after the design was completed.
