IHCL, India's Hospitality Behemoth, Marks 500 Hotels and Counting
With the latest acquisition of a controlling stake in ANK Hotels Pvt Ltd and Pride Hospitality Pvt Ltd. IHCL’s footprint expands to over 500 hotels.
By Suman Tarafdar
That domestic players in India are more than capable of taking on the challenge of mighty international hospitality players has been apparent for a while. Nevertheless, that the largest of them - Tata Group hospitality firm Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) would outpace everyone to become the first to have 500 plus hotels under its portfolio is a considerable feat.
IHCL’s expansion under Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, has been nothing short of spectacular. Within a decade of his stewardship, the group has grown from 40 hotels in 2015 to what would be 250 operational hotels – a fivefold increase – unmatched in the Indian hospitality space. More significantly, it has also turned EBITDA positive and is eyeing even faster growth – 1,000 plus hotels in the coming years, outpacing its own guidance.
IHCL has entered into a strategic partnership, signing agreements to acquire controlling stake in ANK Hotels Pvt Ltd and Pride Hospitality Pvt Ltd and signed a distribution agreement with Brij Hospitality Pvt Ltd. With many decades of hospitality experience, the promoters of these companies belong to the illustrious Clarks hotels family. This takes IHCL’s portfolio to over 550 hotels.
Clarks has been a prominent name on hoteliering, especially in north India, with landmark hotels in Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi etc. ANK Hotels operates and manages hotels under The Clarks Hotels & Resorts brand, with a portfolio of 111 midscale hotels (67 in operation). The company reported a turnover of ₹14.32 crore in FY25. The Clarks Hotels & Resorts stepped into the midscale segment in 2006, with their brand Clarks Inn, which filled an important gap between luxury and economy hotels. IHCL has entered into a share subscription agreement and a shareholders’ agreement to acquire around 51% equity stake in Pride Hospitality Private Limited for an amount not exceeding ₹94 crore. Together, this brings 135 hotels in the midscale segment spread across 110 locations.
IHCL has also signed a distribution and marketing agreement with Brij Hospitality Private Limited, which manages 19 hotels under the Brij brand.
Anoop Kumar, Founder of ANK Hotels Pvt Ltd said, “It is with great enthusiasm that we move forward towards new vistas with India’s largest hotel group. Our forefathers, who sowed the seeds of the hospitality sector in India in 1947, will be proud.”
Centre of Action
India’s hospitality majors are waking up to low hanging fruit that is the midscale segment. This year has already seen expansion in this space with Accor's partnership with Tree of Life and Marriott’s expansion with the acquisition of Fern (now Series). With this acquisition, IHCL emerges as the leading player in the segment with 240 plus hotels.
“We are now leading the midscale opportunity,” Chhatwal asserted while making the announcement regarding the partnership. “In 2018-19 we reimagined and relaunched Ginger more as not like a cheap property, but more in a lean luxury segment. In the last few years we added Qmin, which started as a brand during COVID. Then we went into more like a lifestyle product which is very vibrant, very colourful.
This partnership, Chhatwal says “doubles our presence to almost 240 plus properties and it also helps us secure another platform which will help us pivot. The idea is not to collapse and merge and put it all under IHCL but rather to use this as a platform to have exponential growth going forward and also to make it much more attractive and profitable proposition because we have the possibilities of synergizing even with other group companies so we can give these companies big box assets.”
Chhatwal estimates this brand will be 10% of the total revenue of Indian Hotels Company reported. Sharing an insight, he recollects that “there was a time when we thought what we were doing is this space, we should maybe give it up for free!”
Ginger has been building big box hotels, especially around airports. “We took a very conscious decision to build big box properties. So the first one we did is on our own land in Mumbai at the airport with 371 rooms. It's off to a great start. In its second year, which is this year, it's expected to do an occupancy of 88 to 90% at an average rate of ₹6,500. More like this are coming next year. We will open one at the Bangalore airport. We are under construction at Goa’s Mopa airport. Very recently we concluded a deal for a hotel at the Kolkata airport which should open another 12 to 14 months. And we have one at Cochin airport.”
Chhatwal is a dreamer – and crucially a deliverer. Mid-market will be half of total branded supply, he predicts. So when he envisages 1,000 Ginger hotels in the near future, the proposition does not sound as outlandish as it should in a country that still has that number of branded hotels spread across all segments!
Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, IHCL
This partnership doubles our presence to almost 240 plus properties and it also helps us secure another platform which will help us pivot. The idea is not to collapse and merge and put it all under IHCL but rather to use this as a platform to have exponential growth going forward and also to make it much more attractive and profitable proposition because we have the possibilities of synergizing even with other group companies so we can give these companies big box assets.
Puneet Chhatwal
Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, IHCL
