IHG Hotels & Resorts focused on bringing more luxury offerings to India

Global hospitality major IHG Hotels and Resorts saw its business surpass pre-pandemic levels in 2023 on the back of “unprecedented growth” in the tourism industry, a senior company official said.

The UK-headquartered company, which operates Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza and luxury brands like Intercontinental and Six Senses in India, launched its premium lifestyle brand voco in January this year, with the first property set up at Jim Corbett in North India.

The group, in total, signed 15 new deals in 2023.

“2023 year has been a record year for us, on both the operations and growth dimensions.

"The industry in general has seen unprecedented growth and that has had a positive impact on our business,” Sudeep Jain, South-West Asia managing director, IHG Hotels & Resorts told Business Standard.

On the revenue side, the company has increased its market share by 1.2 per cent this year, Jain said.

“Our revenues are coming from mainly two sources – increasing occupancy and increasing room rates,” he added.

The group’s average occupancy across the portfolio is at about 75 per cent – up from 60 per cent pre-Covid-19.

“This is even when full corporate travel is not back yet.

"It still has some impact of Covid, which is affecting us.

"But despite that, it's been a record year,” he added.

While its India portfolio has grown 286 per cent in the last decade – with the addition of 30 properties and 4,822 rooms – the company plans to add another 45 hotels in the next three to five years to increase the number of rooms to 6,996.

Jain credits this year’s growth to Indian traveller’s mindset shift.

“I think revenge travel may not be the right word anymore.

"But it's just a mindset shift to where people now want to travel much more than normal,” he said, adding that improved infrastructure too has provided impetus to the industry.

“The roads have improved, and there are more facilities available – like DigiYatra – that make travel convenient.

"People tend to ignore the changing surroundings, but there has been a massive change in enabling factors, which have helped the incidence of travel,” he added.

On the signings side too, the group has grown its market share by more than 20 per cent this year.

Jain said that of the 15 new properties added this year, more than one-third were in the luxury and premium segments – including five voco properties in Jim Corbett, Gurgram, Mumbai, Goa, and Amritsar airport.

“While the Holiday Inn family is my mainstay, we’re focused on the luxury and lifestyle side for the coming year,” he said, adding that they are in talks with partners to debut their luxury brands – Regent and Kimpton in India.

“I would like to bring Regent and Kimpton into the country, which we’d like to debut in the metro cities as these offerings work more there.

"We're not going to compromise on the right location, right product, and right partner,” he said.

As much as 75 per cent of the group’s revenue share currently comes from its mainstream brands, about 20 per cent from premium offerings and the rest from luxury properties.

Apart from the luxury lifestyle space, Jain said, he also wants to focus on the resort offerings.

“They create a sort of halo effect. I want to paint the country blue and green,” he said.

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