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Mr Raymond N. Bickson (right), Managing Director, The Indian Hotels Company Ltd, addressing a press conference along with Mr Ravi Dubey, Senior Vice-President, Corporate Affairs/Projects, in Kolkata on Monday. - Parth Sanyal

Kolkata Sept. 8

TAJ Hotels Resorts and Palaces of Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) has launched a major exercise to upgrade and benchmark its luxury and leisure segment hotels to go international in a big way.

This is being done through "asset light management contracts", a part of a larger plan to expand organically, through management contracts, and also be open to small acquisitions, wherever possible.

The company is now celebrating 100 years of the hallowed Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai, and the new business expansion plan will not only include repositioning of the luxury hotels of the group, but also witness a major foray into the Spa segment, a basic amenity of curative facilities, like ayurveda, yoga or even a mineral spring, much sought after by the dollar-paying quality-conscious international tourists these days.

The Taj Group has already created a separate Spa Division within Indian Hotels entity to cater to this market in a big way.

An international standard Spa facility would require a space close to 20,000 sq ft.

Talking to newspersons here today, Mr Raymond Bickson, Managing Director of Taj Hotels and Resorts, said the global spa industry was a $14-billion business, and enjoyed very little identity in India.

We intend to complete the branding exercise within the next 6 months, and create major spas in most of our luxury and leisure hotels by January 2005, said Mr Bickson.

Each Spa of international standard will cost Rs 4-5 crore, and the total investment was likely to be in the region of Rs 50-60 crore, he said.

The West End Bangalore would be the first one to have this international facility.

The Group is also planning to make an entry into the no-frills mid-segment category of value hotels (100-200 rooms each), at multi-locations throughout the country, catering to middle-level company executives and other tourists, which could be scaled up as and when required.

Confirming that a detailed business plan was now on the anvil for this, Mr Bickson said the idea was to leverage facilities like IT-enabled services in a guest house kind of environment which would provide value for money.

He said the large marketing and sales network of the Taj Group of Hotels would be put to best use for this plan, which will be concretised by the end of the current financial year.

Unveiling the growth plans of the Taj Group, Mr Bickson said the idea was to expand outside the country through strategic management contracts, mainly in Asean countries, Indian Ocean crescent (the Taj Exotica brand of resorts), Africa, West Asia, China (Shanghai and Beijing) and also look for opportunities in North America and Europe.

He said a brand architecture to re-define the 100-year Taj brand has been taken up, and the company was now with Landor, the US-based international consultants.

Clarifying that the top-of-the-line Taj luxury brand would not be diluted in any manner, he said the group intended to complete the new expansion plan within the next 24 months.

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