A view with many rooms

It was a quiet afternoon on Anna Salai, Chennai's arterial road. The Executive Lounge at the 10th level of one of the busiest hotels in this part of the city, Courtyard Marriott, was even quieter. A short “Hi” interrupts the quiet, coming from the over 6-feet-tall Simon F. Cooper, the man at the helm of Marriott International's Asia-Pacific business. Though Cooper has been to India many times as President and Chief Operating Officer of Ritz-Carlton, one of the Marriott group's luxury brands, this is his first visit after being promoted as President and Managing Director of Marriott International (Asia-Pacific). In India, Marriott has 12 properties across four brands – JW Marriott, Renaissance, Marriott and Courtyard Marriott – with over 3,000 rooms. Another eight projects with over 2,000 rooms are in the pipeline. BrandLine caught up with him as he was preparing to leave for the group's regional headquarters in Hong Kong.

What has business been like for Marriott in India?

Going by the feedback from our periodic brand tracking exercise amongst business travellers across the globe, the Marriott brand has been very well represented, is very well respected and is one of the most preferred hotel brands in India. In fact, even in the last two years, Marriott hotels performed far better then most other hotels here.

Marriott is just 12 years old here. Homegrown brands such as Taj and Oberoi have been there for a long time. It must be a difficult competition.

Taj, Oberoi and ITC hotels are no doubt well-established brands here in India. But, when it comes to business travellers Marriott has an edge. We are a global brand. We have loyalty programmes whereby reward points can be exchanged for stays across the world. Frequent business travellers obviously will try to build reward points in order to receive benefits. This is something Taj and Oberoi cannot offer. Frequent business travellers prefer a global brand. Even Indian business travellers who travel abroad frequently prefer global brands.

Having said that, I must also admit that the brands such as Taj, Oberoi and ITC have locational advantage. They have beautiful properties … palaces in holiday destinations to offer for global luxury leisure travellers. That's something we do not have.

However, in the business segment, with business dynamics changing fast and cities expanding to align with them, all of us have a level playing field. For example, if you take the IT corridor or manufacturing corridor of Chennai, there is no Taj, no Oberoi. It's a level playing field. So, we are not competing with the Taj or Oberoi for leisure business. But for them, we prove to be a tough one to compete with in the Indian MICE segment. For example, our Mumbai Renaissance is doing extremely well in this segment. The hotel is not in the city… it's on the outskirts. It's a great hotel, great location. A lot of space to walk around, breathe …

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