Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The largest lodging company by its revenue in the country, Indian Hotels Company has planned to monetize its real estate assets, rejig the brands present on its properties and increase its room portfolio said the CEO who was appointed newly while reviving the loss-making of the enterprise. In his first media interaction, Mr. Puneet Chhatwal, 53 said that he wishes to refine the brand architecture of the company with a plan in which 144 of the hotels will sport the Vivanta, Taj and Ginger brand. In his initiative, the single-brand strategy of Rakesh Sarna, all the hotels were to be called Taj.

The one size fits all concept cannot be applied here as same-sized hotels cannot be put across the geographies with similar tariffs to pull across several locations. He also said that a diverse customer base can be targeted at different price points if the multiple brands’ strategy is adopted. Chhatwal who was the former CEO of Deutsche Hospitality has been given the task of turning around the dropping fortune of the Indian Hotels. For the last four fiscal years, the $100 billion Tata Group has been in the red with decreasing revenues and write-downs on investments as well as debts. A five-year plan has been prepared by Chhatwal to improve the operating margins of the Indian Hotels from 17 percent to 25 percent by 2022.

The strategy to achieve this goal involves cutting down the operational costs, selling non-crore investments including shares in ITDC and real estate assets such as hotels which do not make much profit, over 100 residential apartments in Mumbai with an expanding room portfolio from 16,992 to 24,000. The company has a land of 759 acres out of which 6 percent i.e. 44 acres can be monetized. The room expansion will take place in both India as well as Myanmar and Africa stated the management.

By saumya