Category Archives: Hotels

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.   

J.B. Singh, President and CEO, InterGlobe Hotels, recently disclosed that IGH will expand majorly in Tier-I cities. He says, “The standard big metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are high-growth markets with good absorption rate, not just from hospitality side, but from the aviation and commercial real-estate side as well. There is great demand from the customers to build hotels in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Gurugram. We must manage the demand where customers ask for more hotels. We have a couple of hotels under construction in Vikhroli and Thane.”

STR’s hotel pipeline data for the Asia Pacific region showed 2,109 projects accounting for 470,650 rooms in construction as of July 2019. Five countries reported more than 20,000 rooms under construction including India where 24,801 rooms, 8.4% of existing supply is under construction. China led with 244,233 rooms, which represented 9.4% of the country’s existing supply and Japan with 43,012 rooms, 6.3% of existing supply.

Domestic hotel operators dominated signings over international operators with the ratio of 68:32 in the first half (H1) of this year, revealed the Hotel Momentum India (HMI) report released by JLL. The report revealed that 36 per cent of new signings are conversions of old hotels. Also, it was seen that Gujarat had the highest number of branded hotel signings (1593) amongst all states, while West Bengal had highest number of branded hotel openings (926) from January to June, 2019.

Almost all markets in India witnessed an increase in Average Daily Rate (ADR) of hotels in the first half of 2019 except for Ahmedabad.  Bengaluru recorded the highest ADR percentage change of 9.3 per cent in this period over the same period last year, followed by Hyderabad at 9.2%, and then Jaipur at 6.7% The figures were revealed by JLL in a report titled Hotel Momentum India (HMI) that gave the performance report of hospitality industry in 11 markets across India.

Talking about the association of InterGlobe Hotels with brands besides ibis, J.B. Singh, President and CEO, InterGlobe Hotels, says, “Besides ibis, we are also looking at Novotel. We have one under construction now in Bengaluru and are not averse to the idea of doing more properties. But it all depends on the opportunity the market offers. But we are pretty sure, we will come up with a few more.”

“This decision of the government will help the people of Jammu and Kashmir the most because It is estimated that almost 50-60% of total population of J&K is directly and/or indirectly engaged in hospitality, tourism or related ancillary related activities, says, Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, The Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India. According to him, tourism contributes about 15% to the state GDP. “Till now, despite being a leading industry of J&K, concrete steps of its economic impact on state are still lacking. This move will bring in more investment in all sectors, more industry movements, more private educational institutions, more jobs and more revenue will eventually come by, giving the otherwise bogged down state a huge impetus. Despite Kashmir ticking all the right boxes as a Hospitality & Tourism magnet, its presence and business in the state is dismal. Poverty and dependency on almost non-existent hospitality and tourism, except only in a couple of cities or areas lead the citizens to be misdirected towards nefarious activities which would now be to a large extent stand eradicated, he adds.

According to the sixth annual Global Travel Forecast, published by CWT and GBTA, India’s strong economic growth is fuelling a greater demand for business travel and driving up prices. Airfares are forecast to increase 5% (in local currency terms; 0% in USD terms), while hotel rates and ground transport prices are expected to climb 6.8% (1.8% in USD terms) and 4.5% (-0.5% in USD terms), respectively. While the global economy is doing well overall – and expected to grow a solid 3.6% in 2020 – a raft of uncertainties are set to put a damper on pricing. “Earlier this year we saw a spike in airfares after Jet Airways ceased its operations in April, so we’re already at a high base in 2019,” said Vishal Sinha, CEO, India, CWT. “With other airlines adding capacity to fill the vacuum, fares have begun to normalize and we expect that to continue next year. However, if the rupee weakens against the dollar, Indian carriers could be faced with bigger fuel bills and we might see that being passed on to travelers.” “Hotel rates are also expected to rise, as the demand for rooms outpaces supply, especially in secondary cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. At the same time, the commercialization of mid-tier properties by players like Oyo are also pushing prices upwards.”

According to the recent Hotel Momentum India 2019 (HMI), release by JLL, Gujarat is the leading state in  brand signings, while West Bengal leads for hotel openings in first half (H1)2019. Additionally, domestic hotel operators dominated hotel signings over international operators till June 2019 with the ration of 68:32. Importantly, 36 per cent of new signings are conversion of old hotels.

Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) has banned single-use plastic in all its hotels. Nikhil Desai, Managing Director, GTDC, says, “GTDC hotels will strive to be plastic free. We have already started with our head office where we have banned all the plastic bottles etc. We have decided that we will reduce or completely do away with anything that has plastic. In the next step, all our hotels will stress on minimise the use of plastic like water bottles, and will shift to eco-friendly options like paper-based products, metal products or recyclable options, instead of going for one-time use plastics. Followed by its success, we will also ask the private players to join us. First we will show that it is possible for us to do it and lead a plastic free life. Once we are successful, we will request them that they should also follow the same.” This initiative comes in line with the bid to achieve the target that the state government has of making the state plastic-free by 2022.