Hotel Formule1, the budget brand from international hospitality group Accor, is banking on the demand from young India to boost its business in the country.
“We want to build where the young India is. There’s a major chunk of the population in the 25-35 age group, and we want to cater to the demand from this segment,” Philip Logan, Vice-President, Hotel Formule1 India, said.
The brand currently operates five properties in India — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Greater Noida, Pune-Hinjewadi, and the recently launched 205-room property in Gurgaon. It had plans to take the number of hotels from its stable to 10 by the end of this year, but could achieve only five till now. The sixth hotel, a 117-room property in Pimpri, Pune, will open by year-end.
Logan said the chain wants to take the total number to 16 by 2015.
Two hotels would come up in Hyderabad, two in Bangalore, one each in Nashik, Lavasa, Lucknow, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata.
The company has 19 committed deals for expansion of Formule 1 hotels in India.
The hotel’s formula is to keep price points low by using space intelligently. It outsources food and beverage, but has 24X7 vending machines.
“The entry price point is low, hence attracts young travellers to shift from unbranded to branded hotels,” Logan added.
For the Indian market, the brand has had to tweak some features. “We added more colour, focussed on full breakfast buffet (not present in western hotels), and upgraded WiFi to cater to the high data using Indian traveller,” he said.
The room rate could range from ₹2,500 to ₹3,500.
The brand is seeing over 60 per cent occupancy on an average across properties, he said.
Formule1 has also launched a central toll-free number for bookings.
“Apart from this, we are also working on an app right now,” Logan added.