Indian Hotels exceeds its 1.5 hotels-a-month expansion target; Opens 24 new properties this year: Puneet Chhatwal

Indian Hotels, which had projected its facility expansion at a rate of at least 1.5 new hotels a month in 2022, has surpassed this guidance by another six units.  The management said on Tuesday that it effectively signed two hotels every month, ie 24 in the year.

Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO of the Tata Group-promoted Indian Hotels Company Ltd, said on Tuesday that; “On Friday or Thursday, we signed our 250th hotel, which is going to be the Taj in Riyadh. Yesterday, we opened a phenomenal, very nice business property in Jaipur. We were always known for our palaces — the Rambagh, the Sawai Man Mahal, the Jai Mahal, the Devi Ratn — but yesterday, we opened the Taj Amer in Jaipur,” he told CNBC-TV18.

Puneet Chhatwal said all of Indian Hotels’ brands were growing very strongly with Taj and Ginger both destined to hit 100 hotels within the next six to 12 months. This, he said, would make Taj one of the exceptional luxury brands across the globe to have 100 hotels.

“We are also continuing our selective growth on the international front based on management contracts instead of doing single asset acquisition, which we did 20 years ago…our growth is a leading example for the hospitality sector in terms of last three years, having the highest number of signing of rooms, hotels, opening of rooms, opening of hotels, adding that he doesn’t see the trend changing in the short or medium term.

Indian Hotels is eyeing margin above 33 percent by the end of 2025, Chhatwal asserted, and compared it to the 2010 to 2017 period, when the hospitality company’s average for a year was below 15-16 percent.

“If you're doubling those margins based on the snapshot of almost like 10 years ago and an average of 5-6-7 years, the sector that way and us in particular would have done very well because the hotel industry is both capital intensive and a labour intensive sector, which is the reason why global hotel brands and also we find it very difficult to touch 30 percent. So if you're touching 30, we are doing exceptionally well, “ he explained.

Reflecting on the sector’s expectation from the upcoming budget, he said the hotel industry wants an infrastructure status as the sector globally creates the maximum number of indirect jobs. While the infrastructure is being built, the sector offers jobs in construction and once the properties open up, more jobs are created directly not just in the hotels but also indirectly in terms of vegetable suppliers, supply chains, etc.

He added if the sector gets the infrastructure status at the Centre level and industry status at the states level, there will be a huge increase in investment.