Hotel major IHG looks for more room in India

Global hospitality major InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is planning to more than double its presence in India over the next three to five years.

Incidentally, IHG has presence in India for five decades now. It was amongst the first foreign hotel operators to enter the country through a tie-up with the Oberoi group in Delhi in the 1960s.

Currently, operating 7,000 rooms across 29 hotels through four brands – Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza and InterContinental – the company will look to add 8,000 to 10,000 rooms across 41 upcoming ones.

According to Shantha De Silva, Head of South West Asia, InterContinental Hotels Group, the company is quite bullish about India.

The country features as the third largest “growing market” – in terms of addition of properties – after the US and China.

“Over the next 10 years we intend to have 100-150 hotels open and operating in India,” he told BusinessLine during an interview.

De Silva was in the city for the launch of Holiday Inn Kolkata Airport hotel. This will be the first IHG group hotel in the eastern part of the country.

Two other hotels are planned in West Bengal — one each in Siliguri and Durgapur – under the Holiday Inn brand. City-based Jain Group will be developing these properties.

According to De Silva, the IHG now has a global strategy to opt for an “asset light” model.

Accordingly, it had to change its business model from a franchise-led model to an asset light one here in India.

“We moved from a franchise model to a managed model. The transition took a while. But, having said that, we compare pretty well to our competition on the number of hotels we have in India,” he said, adding that over the last two to three years the group has “doubled” its presence here in the country.

According to him, the hospitality major would not shy away from introducing other brands (of the IHG group) in India, if the need arises.

Some of the other brands owned by the group include Kimpton, Even, Staybridge and so on.

“If there is an opportunity we may bring in other brands,” he pointed out.

IHG was also open to exploring possibilities of having hotels in tier-II and III cities.

Currently, most of its presence in India is spread across major tier-I cities like the four metro cities, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and a few tier-II ones like Amritsar, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, among others.

“That’s a growing area for us (tier-II). A lot of our hotels are concentrated on tier-I cities. We will see more growth come in from tier-II and III cities,” De Silva said.

“A lot of that (entry in non-metros) depends on partnership opportunities,” he added.