Accorhotels to launch new hotel brands in India
MUMBAI: After building a sizeable number of economy and midscale hotels in India, Europe’s leading hospitality firm AccorHotels has lined up a new pipeline of hotel brands in luxury and service apartment space, a category which has seen growing interest from major hotel chains like Indian Hotels Co. Ltd, Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Marriott International Inc.
In an interview with Mint, Jean-michel Cassé, chief operating officer (India and South Asia) at Accorhotels, said the company is in advanced stage of discussion with a real estate developer in Gurugram to launch its first global apartment hotel brand, Novotel Suites, in the country. Construction of the project which comprises around 100 apartments is likely to start in the next few months, he said.
The Paris-based hotel company owns and runs around 20 brands across 92 countries. In India, it currently operates around 47 hotels under 10 brands, including Sofitel, Novotel and Ibis, in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
“We are working on some projects in terms of offering serviced apartments. One or two projects are under development. We will be launching our pure standalone apartment hotel brand Novotel Suites,” Casse said. At present, the hotel company operates service apartment business under the Novotel brand in Kolkata and Visakhatpatnam and Grand Mercure in Bengaluru.
Besides the Gurugram project, the company is exploring an opportunity to launch its service apartment business in Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh.
“Up to 15% of online travellers in India are using non-hotel accommodations, including home rentals and services apartments. The demand is growing for this space. Four years back, it was about 10%. There has been also been a growing demand from corporate executives for long stay and such apartments provides a convenient option,” said Chetan Kapoor, research analyst (Asia Pacific) at Phocuswright, a travel research firm.
Accorhotels is also at an advanced stage of discussion to launch its global luxury brands Raffles Hotel and Banyan Tree, Casse said, adding that up to four hotels are likely to be launched under these brands.
“We want to develop a strong pipeline in the luxury space while we also see more opportunity to strengthen our existing brands as we get more recognition in the local market. We are aiming to open our luxury brand Raffles and also few Banyan Tree hotels in India,” he said.
At present, the company operates four luxury hotels under Sofitel, Fairmont, Pullman and Swissotel brands across Mumbai, Jaipur, New Delhi and Kolkata. It is also looking develop more Fairmont hotels in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, he added.
“We would be happy to develop more Sofitel hotels in locations like Goa. In the luxury space, we have shown interest among property owners in bringing The Banyan Tree, a luxury resort brand,” he said. Year 2017 has been a year of structural transition at micro and macro levels. At the macro level, there was demonetisation; then implementation of Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA), 2016, from 1 May
2017; and Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation from 1 July 2017. The government also came out with several benefits for the affordable housing segment. The structural changes had positive and negative impacts since developers were not ready. Others, too, were not ready for demonetisation. The economy was not ready for the transition to GST regime from value-added tax (VAT) and service tax regime. Earlier only 6 million people were registered under VAT; now the number has crossed 10 million under GST. So, it’s a great transition. Similarly, developers were not used to launching projects with all approvals. They would launch as per their will, collect money, get approvals... there wasn’t any process. What we have found is that new launches have come down drastically. Year 2017 will be remembered for the It was smooth for us. There were hiccups in the initial stages, but not anymore. I think we have registered about three dozen projects, without any problem. Once you realise that there will be problems in the initial stage, you are not agitated. Instead of cribbing and crying, we embraced it. We knew RERA is good for customers, and we knew that if it is good for customers, it is good for developers and the real estate sector. We believed in RERA; and we believed that developers have to walk the talk. We are trying to give more focus to affordable housing, though we have been doing it for long. Our project, Dream Acres, was launched before the affordable housing schemes were launched. It happens to be Bangalore’s largest ever single housing project with 6,945 apartments, with an average size of 1,040