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New resort projects coming up across the country

Mr Ramesh Ramanathan

R. Ravikumar

Chennai, July 12 Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra, intends to invest Rs 600 crore on a clutch of resorts projects.

Mr Ramesh Ramanathan, Managing Director of the company, told Business Line that the major projects would include a 55-room resort in Rajasthan and 50-room resort in Uttarakhand, involving an investment of Rs 100 crore. It has acqui red 7 acres at Kumbalgarh, north-east of Udaipur, and a 5-acre plot in Uttarakhand for the purpose.

According to Mr Ramanathan, these two properties will be up and running by the end of this year.

It also plans to put up five resorts next year at an investment of Rs 300-350 crore — two in Maharashtra, one each in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Sikkim.

The company recently acquired a property at Ashtamudi (Kerala) for Rs 10 crore and intends to invest another Rs 25 crore in renovation and expansion of the resort.

Mahindra Holidays has two brands in its portfolio — Club Mahindra Holidays and Zest. While Club Mahindra Holidays is a product suitable for annual vacations, Zest is targeted at those who seek short breaks.

Club Mahindra Holidays at present has 55,000 members. “We are targeting 1 lakh members by fiscal 2008-09,” said Mr Ramanathan.

Besides, the company plans to invest Rs 150-crore in three relatively smaller properties for Zest in Puducherry, Coorg and Yercaud.

It has acquired 27 acres of land between Puducherry and Cuddalore (on the beach) for a 125-unit resort. Currently, work is on and the property will be operational by March next year, he said. Zest, at present, has two properties in Ooty and Kodaikanal.

The company also plans to take Zest, which is now present only in Chennai and Bangalore, to 10 new markets in the months to come.

Mahindra Holidays recently launched a travel portal, Clubmahindra.travel, to assist its members in their travel planning.

Though, at present it does ticket bookings and other services like any other travel agency, its aim is to position the brand as a travel planner and travel advisory. “We want to focus more on the holiday travelling segment than business travel.”

While the company’s topline grew 54 per cent to Rs 240.65 crore for the year ended March 2007, from Rs 156.73 crore in the previous year, its bottomline grew at 100 per cent to Rs 41.76 crore from Rs 20.83 crore.

The company is also set to go for an IPO in the next six months.

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Mahindra Holidays to invest Rs 600 cr

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