Category Archives: Hotels

J K Mohanty, CMD – Swosti Group, has revealed that they are coming up with two beach resort projects in Odisha, one at Gopalpur on Sea and another at Puri.  He says, “We already have land at Puri and acquired a patch of land at Gopalpur on Sea. Very soon, Swosti Group will put up world-class luxury beach resorts at these places. Besides, beach resorts in Puri and Gopalpur, Swosti Group is also working on two leisure destination resorts at Satapada and Bhitarkanika, the place called the Mini Amazon of India. Swosti Group is also planning to expand its hospitality business in Daringbadi (which is known as Kashmir of Odisha) and at Belghar (Phulbani area).”

For Accor, H1 performance was higher than last year by 13 percent in line to budget in terms of room revenue but slightly below budget for Food and , Beverage because of the MICE segment, said Jean-Michel Cassé, Chief Operating Officer (COO) – India & South Asia, Accor. Bangalore hotels recorded maximum occupancy growth with almost 20 percent rate growth. Goa had a soft Q1 with under 5 percent RevPAR growth. Hotels in Mumbai recorded around 80 percent occupancy with almost 12-15 percent rate increase. Delhi NCR hotels were at around 75 percent with double digit ADR growths.

In a recent interview, Atul Jain, Chief Operating Officer, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, says, “By the end of this year, 6 more Best Western-branded hotels are on track to open their doors. This include Best Western brand in New Delhi, Nawanshahr and Goa;  Best Western Plus brand in Vijag and Gurgaon. We look forward to introducing guests the exciting new brands of Best Western in the future, as we continue to develop a collection of high-quality hotels in key cities and resort locations, all across India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka.”

Small Luxury Hotels of The World (SLH), with its India Representatives, ISA Tourism, conducted series of sales meetings with important travel partners and organised Key Partners Meet in Mumbai and New Delhi. SLH has more than 500 member hotels in over 80 countries. In Asia Pacific, there are more than 100 member hotels in its portfolio that offer unique luxury experiences complemented with the highest standards of intuitive service to independently minded upscale travellers. “To augment the brand presence of SLH and to grow the number of discerning Indian guests at our hotels and resorts, it is our first meet conducted at Mumbai and New Delhi with first batch of select key partners that are already booking with us. The meet was also aimed to educate the partners about new SLH affiliated hotels and update them on the channels of bookings. Now with our representative office in India, it is important for us to enhance our local sales presence and provide better customer service to our travel partners.” said Mark Wong, Vice President Asia Pacific of SLH. The event focused onboosting SLH brand awareness with the travel trade and driving reservations from the luxury outbound travel market. Additionally, it will generate leads for small corporate meetings and leisure groups including family travel and small wedding groups. Travel consultants were given more insight on the destinations, niche accommodation, unique activities et al, that is not easily accessible to a casual browser (end customer) planning a trip.

Lords Hotels & Resorts will open 11 hotels by early 2020 in India. In a recent interview, Rishi Puri, Senior VP- Operations & Development, Lords Hotels & Resorts, says, “Starting September 1, we will open 11 properties across India by early 2020. The locations of these hotels are- Goa, Morbi, Lonavala, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Kurnul, Amritsar, Rajkot, Amritsar, Rajkot (2 hotels), Nathdwara and Udaipur.”

Best Western will unveil BW Premier and Executive Residency brands by 2021 in India. The brand will also unveil GLō and Aiden later in the country. Atul Jain, COO, Best Western Hotels & Resorts India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, says, “Best Western Hotels & Resorts will aggressively seek expansion in India and other chosen markets, but will do so responsibly and efficiently.  The expansion will be spread across our brands and will include Best Western Plus, Best Western Premier, Vīb and GLō properties”. 

In a recent interview, Jaideep Dang, Managing Director, Hotels & Hospitality Business, JLL, says, “At present, Hyderabad is a booming market and is back into the reckoning. New hotels are being added yet the city remains strong. Besides this, Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram keep rising. However, Mumbai remains at the top in terms of Occupancy and RevPAR. The reason primarily remains the surge in the commercial market space.”

In a recent interview, Atul Jain, Chief Operating Officer, Best Western Hotels & Resorts India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, says, “Following the signing of 20 new hotels in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the group regional pipeline now features 36 hotels containing over 3,000 rooms. The new hotel signings will operate under Best Western, Best Western Plus, SureStay Plus and SureStay Hotel by Best Western. The company’s expansion will start immediately, with the opening of Best Western La Vista Pathankot followed by Best Western Plus Mohali. By the end of this year, 6 more Best Western-branded hotels are on track to open their doors. This include Best Western brand in New Delhi, Nawanshahr and Goa; Best Western Plus brand in Vizag and Gurgaon.”

The year 2019 is expected to outpace 2018 with a total of 105 new branded hotel openings with a total key count of 8,574 keys, revealed HVS ANAROCK in its recent report. It revealed that the effort to open new hotels, big or small, requires hotel operators to coordinate large amounts of preopening effort. So, while domestic operators opened 65 hotels of the total 134 openings in 2018, which represents nearly half of all the openings, in terms of key counts, domestic operators represented only 32% of the total 7,215 keys.

Accor will be launching two new Grand Mercure properties in India – Grand Mercure Gandhinagar GIFT City that will be launched in October and Grand Mercure Bengaluru at Gopalan Mall that will be launched in December. The Gandhinagar property will have 151 rooms and Bengaluru property will have 206 rooms.