Choice Hotels India, an arm of the Choice Hotels International, plans to launch four hotels in the country this year while adding 12 new properties every year in the next five years. Choice Hotels, which runs properties in four brands, will open a new hotel in Whitefield in Bangalore shortly and are looking at starting one in Mysore too.
Choice Hotels India CEO Vilas Pawar told Deccan Herald here that the chain was already operating 30 properties in 22 locations in India. “We want to be leaders in mid-market 2-4 star hotels and we are focusing on the Tier-II and Tier-III cities which would be engines of developments in the near future”.
Choice, which does not invest in hotels but handles sale and marketing, and operates hotels for a fee, recently entered into an agreement with Royal Indian Raj International Corporation to build 15,000 budget hotels in the country. “Initially we are looking at 100-120 hotels and the first such hotel could be opened at Ludhiana”, Pawar said. “we are the solution for small hotels owners to international hotels 50-60 rooms upwards”.
According to the Choice CEO, the chain would concentrate on running four of its brands: Sleep Inn [Rs 1800-2400], Comfort [Rs 2500-3500], Quality [three star– Rs 3500-5000] and Clarion [four star Rs 6500-10,000]. “We offer brand extension also which no competitor provides. There is value addition in all the brands. Budget hotels-investment returns make sense. It is the demand segment now”.
Pawar said Choice promoters would invest Rs 750 crore in the next few years in the country. It signed 11 hotels last year in cities such as Chennai, Amristsar, Delhi which are in various stages of construction. In Bangalore, we will add Clarion brand. We are in both leisure and business segments. We want to have our brand all over India. In USA, we have 4500 hotels of 10 brands. I see no reason why, with our kind of population, we cannot have even half of it”.
On what the government should do to encourage the hospitality sector, Pawar said while the five-year tax holiday announced by the government was welcome, it was not enough. “It should be for a period of 10 years. It is an industry which takes time to grow. Gestation period is long. Land prices going haywire. Hence, the sector wants this extension to 10 years”.
