Expand and conquer
From mono brand, where everything was Taj, Indian Hotels Company is now focussed on brand segmentation with Vivanta, Gateway and Ginger…
MEGHA PAUL Indian
Hotels Company is eyeing 200 hotels globally in its portfolio in the next five years. The company will establish a strong presence of its four brands in India. This was revealed by Raymond Bickson, Managing Director and CEO, Indian Hotels Company.
“Of the 200 hotels, the number of hotels outside India would double to around 35 from the current 17 properties,” he said.
Going forward, the group will take the management route for its expansion. “It has grown immensely by having equity in the businesses, but we have to take an approach the international companies take. The idea is that we want to get market share, so that clients can always find your brand wherever they visit. And they also promote our brand globally.”
The majority of the new hotels will be through management contracts. To grow to 200 hotels globally, it would be 75 per cent through management contracts and 25 per cent through equity. “However, we won’t own the whole thing. It will be in participation with some other companies as well,” he added.
Talking about foraying into newer brand segments in the last few years, the MD & CEO informed, “Over the last 10 years, we have reengineered our brand architecture. The group has launched new brands such as Ginger. We were not in the economy sector earlier. So from one mono brand, where everything was Taj, we went to more specific brand segmentation with Vivanta, Gateway and Ginger, the services and the price point.”
Regarding the overseas expansion strategy, he pointed out, “The international brands that are coming to India have significant loyalty programmes. So to protect our market share, we have to go outside India. In the beginning, we had six hotels outside India in Colombo, Maldives and London for 30 years. Today, this number has gone up to 17. We were not in North Africa or South Africa or North America. During these years, we went to Sydney and Malaysia. We have four contracts in China as of now. We are also growing our Taj and Vivanta by Taj brands in four-star and fivestar categories outside India.”