Any plans to beef up your presence in the leisure segment?

Yes, of course. Going forth, if I see as an outsider, leisure travel in India is going to get much bigger. That's precisely what I came now for. Last week, I visited Kerala to have a look at a project, and also to see if we can locate any idyllic place where we can plan one. We do need resorts to make our loyalty programme even more attractive.

Finalised any?

(Laughs) No, not really. Haven't signed any deal yet.

If you do, which brand will you bring in there?

Marriott, or may be Ritz-Carlton. They are the two typical resort brands.

What's your perception of the India market?

India has always been a very high-end, inbound leisure market, and not a paradise for business travellers till 10 or 15 years ago. But the scene has changed so dramatically in the last decade. When I first came to India 15 years ago, Maurya Sheraton (then) in Delhi had more Indians in the lobby than foreign nationals. But what you see now is very different. There are a lot of foreign nationals in almost every city's hotels, not just one or two cities. Everybody knows Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. The growth of these cities in terms of manufacturing, IT and financial services in terms of infrastructure is amazing. It's really interesting to see how the last 15 years have transformed India.

More interestingly, the businesses and hotels in India are extraordinarily well distributed, be it manufacturing, pharma or software. Not many countries have this. Even in America most international businesses are located on the east and west coasts. In Germany, it's again well distributed like in India. But in France, it's only in Paris and a couple of other cities. If you take China, the majority of international businesses and hotels are clustered. More than 50 per cent of the luxury hotels are in just three or four cities … all are on the east coast. In India, they are everywhere, in every city. Even within the city, hotels here are well distributed. Generally, in other countries, luxury hotels are situated in the heart of the city, a few blocks away from each other. In India, I find them all over.

Does it mean Marriott is growing its India business much faster than any other country in Asia?

Actually, we are growing faster in China than in India. For the hotel industry to grow better, travel infrastructure needs to be developed faster. From the travel infrastructure point of view, I see air travel is more convenient here. India needs to build better roads and improve rail connectivity, particularly high-speed trains. See how high-speed trains are going to change China dramatically. However, we are planning to bring in our Fairfield brand and focus on growing this brand faster here. Fairfield is a step-down from Courtyard.

It's a budget hotel brand of Marriott?

No. We positioned the brand clearly above that. To say with example, it will be considerably above Ginger and below this hotel (Courtyard).

Not a bread-and-breakfast.

No. It will have at least one full-time restaurant, meeting rooms, comfortable guest rooms and so on.

A full-service hotel, then?

It will be close to it. A growing economy like India certainly needs this model. I bring this up in the context of growth. Fairfield has great potential in this market. All it requires is one acre of land and about 150 keys. The whole idea is to crank them out easily anywhere. As the market matures, we should be doing a lot more Fairfields in India. In a city like this, there will be one Courtyard, one JW Marriott … maybe I will think of one more, and easily five or six Fairfield hotels.

So your focus will be more on Fairfield than other brands.

Not necessarily. We do not need to grow one brand at the expense of the other. Our focus will, of course, be on growing our full-service products such as Marriott, JW Marriott, Renaissance and Courtyard. We need a Ritz-Carlton in Mumbai, and a JW Marriott in Delhi. It depends on the city.

Do you tweak your brand positioning to suit the market requirement here?

Yes, absolutely. For example, the Courtyard here is a clean and crisp full-service hotel, this offers buffet breakfast, everything. You won't get these things in North American Courtyards. You won't have this kind of club lounge in North American Courtyards. Courtyards elsewhere have restaurants for breakfast on self-service format — grab-and-go lunch-and-dinner types. This tweaking is done not only for India, but for entire Asia. People here expect full-service hotels.

Are you hard-pressed to bring in expats to run your hotels here?

It depends. If it's Ritz-Carlton, yes we may need to fly in one or two. But for other brands, I don't think so. However, we do have a few expats on our rolls, predominantly for the purpose of culinary, to bring in more authenticity.

Do you think India is still under-roomed?

Oh, yes! (Laughs) India has a long way to go, it's not even close to the required number of hotel rooms. The economy is emerging. Indians are acquiring wealth. Such a big country, with its economy growing at 8-10 per cent a year, surely needs a lot more. Even if you look at the rate at which airline seats are increasing, the number of flights, India will take years to reach there. We continue to think India is going to be a more and more mature economy. If you look at global statistics in any mature economy, there is one hotel room for every 10 to 15 people in the population. It's a fact, not a benchmark though.

There is a general perception that hotel rooms in India are far more expensive than in any other country.

No. Not at all. Singapore is expensive, China is expensive. In some places it could be cheap, because of oversupply of rooms in that area.

What are the key challenges you face in India?

I think the increasing cost of land. It's going up astronomically. It's probably the biggest hurdle for any hotel project in India. That's one area where India is very different from almost all the other countries in Asia, except Japan. Land cost is so high only in India and Japan. It takes up about half of the project cost. In America, it would be 15 to 20 per cent, in Paris, maybe around 20 to 25 per cent. Tokyo is the only other place where land cost would be as high as in India.

The second would be finding the right business partner, someone who is in the business of building hotels. In the hotel industry, partnering with the right developer is very critical to the success of the project.

And the third is probably leadership. The leader, the General Manager of a hotel, has enormous influence on its success, so we need to grow them outstandingly. We need to nurture and retain talent.

Any advice for budding hoteliers?

The less obvious one I would have to say is one must understand that any lateral move is going to teach you something new. Especially when you are in the early part of your career, not just in the hotel industry, be it anywhere, you must not have the tendency to look negatively at lateral moves. If you get a chance to move from kitchen to housekeeping it's good, accept that. Even if you are not going to get paid more, you will get to learn something new. The one who has worked in more departments will certainly stand a better chance of getting elevated.

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