The Hindu Business Line : Marriott bets on service apartments biz in India

Mumbai, Nov. 6 American hotel major Marriott International Inc is to set up service apartments in India in view of the potential for growth in this segment and will set up their second Marriott Executive Apartments at Gurgaon by 2009, said Mr Geoff Garside, Executive Vice-President-Asia Pacific at the sidelines of a press conference.

“The supply of service apartments in India in comparison to the demand is very limited. Apart from Marriott apartments at Powai, Mumbai, there is only one more service apartment provider in the country,” said Mr Navjit Ahluwalia, Vice-President, Hotel Development, India & Subcontinent.

Targeted at the foreign businessmen in India working on projects of more than three weeks, the apartments are sometimes priced higher than the hotel rooms, according to Mr Brad Edman, Director of Marketing, Malaysia, India, Pakistan & Maldives. “Foreign businessmen and their families form 96 per cent of the occupants and we try to locate these apartments in and around our existing hotels to enable them to use the facilities,” he added.

Service apartment is a popular concept in the US and though it is fairly new in India, it is catching up. “We have 117 apartments at Powai and it is the maximum revenue-generating venture from across the world,” he said. The company is in talks for setting up more such apartments at Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore among other cities, said Mr Ahluwalia.

Expansion plans

With six operational hotels in India, Marriott has announced 17 more hotels in the next few years. A global sales office has been set up in Mumbai to handle the outbound travel. “Bangkok and Thailand are the most favoured destinations by Indians followed by Switzerland,” said Mr Anant Joshi, Regional Director, Global Sales, India & subcontinent.

The group operates more than 2,900 hotels worldwide and plans to add 85,000 to 1,00,000 rooms by 2010 taking the total to 6,00,000 rooms. The company reported a turnover of $12.2 billion of which $200 million came from India.

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