1st Howard Johnson in Bengaluru
Four weeks after taking charge of brand’s new vertical of the company, Sanjoy Pasricha, CEO, Unique Global- Hospitality Division speaks exclusively to about its initiatives and key strategies for the debut of the Howard Johnson brand in India.
MEGHA PAUL International
hospitality major Wyndham Hotel Group has entered into a partnership with Ahmedabad-based Unique Mercantile to develop 35 hotels in India under Howard Johnson brand in the next five years.
The partnership will mark the entry of Howard Johnson brand into India from Wyndham’s global portfolio. Talking about the recent development, Pasricha says, “The company’s Unique Global-Hospitality Division is a vertical of Unique Mercantile, an insurance company in Gujarat. As per the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) rules, 51 per cent of the revenues of insurance firms need to be from noninsurance segments. Thus, the company had combined insurance policies along with time-share concept in hotels. They would buy and block bulk rooms from small hotels and then package it with insurance policies. They are also into real estates in Ahmedabad. One of their key partners was the company that built the Marriott in Ahmedabad.” In January this year, the company tied up with Wyndham to build 35 Howard Johnson hotels in India. This would be managed and operated by Unique Global by 2017. In the next five years, the target is to build, manage and operate 35 Howard Johnson properties in India, he adds.
According to Pasricha, Wyndham is a late entrant in the Indian hospitality market and has had a chequered growth till now. Thus, the group is now looking to bring about standardisation in its new product. “When Unique Mercantile tied up with Wyndham this year, the idea was to get some standardisation of experience. Howard Johnson itself is a mixed brand. In the US it operates as a budget brand whereas in China, it is a five-star level category. But the opportunity in India lies in the mid-market segment. Mid market is a wide segment and therefore, within this there is scope for division. There is upscale midmarket, upper mid- market and the budget mid-market. Into the upscale mid-market comes the Marriott Courtyard. Into the middle mid- market comes brands like Aloft, Lemon Tree and Hilton Garden Inn. Thus, there is a great opportunity in the upscale mid- market which is just a notch below the five- star hotels. Thus, you give five- star facilities for prices that are lesser than five- star. What price you build these hotels is of utmost importance.”
After working with groups such as Taj and Leela, Pasricha feels that the new buzzword today in the hospitality sector is the mid budget segment. "The number of hotel rooms that are coming in the mid-market segment in the next five to ten years is over 50,000," he reveals.
Talking about the characteristics of the hotel brand which will be positioned in the upscale mid-market category in India and built under the partnership with other developers, the CEO reveals, “At the Howard Johnson properties in India, each room would be 32 square metre. Amenities that every hotel in the brand would see include all-day dining, minimum 100 rooms, speciality restaurant, bar, meeting and board rooms, pool and gymnasium. A spa could be a possibility as well.”
The group is betting big on the emerging markets and thus, it will have a slew of openings in the tier-II and tierIII cities. The first Howard Johnson property will be unveiled in Bengaluru next year. A 130-key property behind the Manyata Tech Park, the group will be the first organised hotel player in the area. “The trick of mid-market hotel is the cost of land. Going forward, we have identified 15 cities where the brand would be present. The confirmed cities include Hyderabad, Shirdi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, Mangalore and Tirupati. Most of these hotels will come up by 2015. After getting into these destinations, we would also scout for properties in cities such as Goa, Ahmedabad, Surat, NCR, including Noida and Ghaziabad, Mysore, Hoobli and Patna. This gives us a total of almost 16 locations,” he confirms. Unique Global has also taken over the erstwhile Monsoon Palace Hotel in Udaipur. It is being rebranded as the Ramada Udaipur Resort and Spa. “This is the only non- Howard Johnson property in our portfolio. A 72-room operating hotel, we have spent
15 crore for its upgradation. The hotel will be relaunched this October,” he concludes.