Category Archives: Hotels

‘Small Luxury Hotels of The World’ holds partners meet in Mumbai & Delhi

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.

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Lords Hotels to open 11 hotels by early 2020 in India

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.”

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Best Western to unveil BW Premier and Executive Residency brands by 2021 in India

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”. 

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Mumbai leads in RevPAR as well as Occupancy in first half and Q2 of 2019: JLL

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.”

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Best Western to open 9 hotels by Q1 2020 in India

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.”

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105 more branded hotels expected to open in 2019 than in 2018: HVS ANAROCK

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.

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Travelport unveils blockchain solution to optimise hotel commission settlement

Travelport has developed blockchain solution to enhance the hotel commission reconciliation process with IBM Services, BCD Travel and number of hotels. The blockchain technology solution aims to optimise hotel commission processing on a distributed ledger by managing reconciliation, tracking and accounting for commission payments owed from hotel chains for services purchased by travellers via booking agencies. The platform creates an accurate and shared view of the booking status and commissions, which benefits all parties concerned. Blockchain technology behaves like an online ledger with the ability to collect data, build upon that data in real-time, and then independently and securely report information to any number of parties based on permission. Following an IBM Garage engagement, Travelport and IBM Services, together with partner BCD Travel, developed an MVP solution using distributed ledger technology to streamline commission reconciliation between BCD and three high profile hotel chains. Hotel commission reconciliation processes include a range of challenges from the operational lack of audit trails driving escalations and manual data mapping, to the financial impairment of revenue forecasting, to the more commercial impact on commission flexibility and duty of care. Solving for this current friction is critical to ensure all stakeholders in a hotel transaction are duly compensated and ultimately to ensure customers receive an optimal travel experience; and, blockchain is an ideal solution to address this. Travelport and IBM are currently working in partnership with industry stakeholders to evolve the solution into an active pilot program. Sandeep Dwivedi, Chief Operating Officer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient (ITQ) commented: “Blockchain is a disruptive technology with enormous potential to improve hotel commission reconciliation process and Travelport’s blockchain solution will certainly address various challenges surrounding it. Further, as we …

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GPS Kolkata kick-starts, announces EDWIN with Trulyy Hotels

The fourth edition of Global Panorama Showcase Kolkata kick-started at The Lalit Great Eastern, Kolkata with slew of announcements related to its upcoming plans. With a target of reaching out to 25 destinations with EDWIN (Educational Destination Workshop) in next five years, Harmandeep Singh Anand, Managing Director, GPS, announced new EDWIN program with Trulyy hotels at its properties in Gujarat and Rajasthan. He also announced special booking packages with Trulyy providing 30, 40 and 50 per cent discount with membership program.  According to Anand, The Oberoi hotels has also proposed a special membership plan for the GPS members. He also briefed about sustainable and responsible tourism initiatives of GPS including rain water harvesting programme, restricting single-use plastic and counselling the clients on code of conduct in hotels abroad.

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Prakash Bang shares learnings from 49 years of travelling

Currently the Executive Chairman of roomsXML Solutions, a company he founded in 2010, Prakash Bang has penned down his globe-trotting experiences in the form of e-books. Today, he has a total of 40 e-books that are dedicated to destinations across six continents and two poles. The idea came to him while travelling for work that takes him around the world giving him an opportunity to see the world through his camera. His efforts have featured him in The Limca Book of Records for a ‘travelogue of the longest duration’ – a record that remains unbeaten since its inception in 2014. Bang speaks of his endeavour and says, “I am now away from day to day affairs of my company. Both my sons, Ruchir and Anuj are in charge and are doing a good job. With time on hand, it was possible to write about my travels. Essentially, each of these books are my personal experiences. The pictures are shot by me, as I saw them. Travellers as well as the travel trade will find the information pretty useful. Each book can be downloaded for only Rs 100 – because giving it free will undermine its value.” His e-books not only include international destinations such as Bhutan, Seoul, and Copenhagen but also Indian destinations like Varansai, Ladakh and Hampi.   

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