The mid-tier hotel chain Ibis, a joint venture between French hospitality chain Accor Hotels and InterGlobe Hotels, will launch five hotels in the next three months, and has plans to open four more by 2017.
The five hotels will be launched in Goa, Kochi, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Delhi. The group is looking at Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune for the next stage of development. The 19 hotels have a cumulative investment of ₹2,000 crore.
Speaking at the launch of the second Ibis hotel in the city, Jean-Micheal Casse, Senior Vice-President, AccorHotels India, said the country has a huge potential for mid-market budget hotels as there is huge gap between demand and supply.
There is gap of about 1,40,000 hotels rooms in the country catering to the mid-market segment and 50,000 such rooms were added in the last five years.
“This presents a huge potential for us,” Casse said.
He said the mid-segment hotels with per day prices ranging between ₹4,500 and ₹6,500 cater to people who are looking for value for money.
Accor Hotels is also looking at launching resorts in Chennai. “Chennai has a strong growth and we are looking at opportunities,” Casse said.
Another mid-segment hotel chain, Novotel, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) venture between Accor Hotels and InterGlobe hotels, is on an expansion mode as well.
Casse said, “We have plans to expand in North-East as there are no well-known players there.
“Two hotels are under construction in Shillong and Guwahati and expected to commence operation early 2017.”
JP Singh, President and Chief Executive Officer, said two hotels, in Chennai and Jaipur, will commence operation this year and another in Vijayawada will be launched in 2017.
Stating that they are concentrating on strengthening their presence in India before branching out to Sri Lanka and Nepal, Singh said: “We are evaluating more tier-II and III cities, as they have a good potential.”