Interglobe Hotels Pvt Ltd focuses on IBIS brand I-tier cities in India as it wants to abandon its budget label and position itself in the central market segment citing strong demand for quality hotels.
JB Singh, president and CEO of Interglobe Hotels, said the joint venture between Accor Assia Properties, which owns 29 IBIS Properties in India, is evaluating opportunities for growth in the next phase of the city’s top locations.
“In India, there is a huge opportunity to build more branded hotels. The re-quality of confidential hotels is seriously under-quality,” he said. “Travel and tourism will also grow in multiples of 1.5 to 2 times. As a result, the industry’s growth is not only five years, but longer than that, thus increasing by 8-14%.
While ACCOR classifies IBIS as a budget hotel brand, Singh cites building quality and calls it a mid-market chain. “We don’t see ourselves as a budget brand,” he said. “We are a midsize hotel company purely because of the projects we work on.” “We are actually one of the most effective people in the category.”
The main ACCOR of the French hotel (the company behind iconic brands like Pullman Hotels & Resorts) formed a partnership in 2004 with the parents of Indian aviation giant Indigo to develop properties budgeted to the middle market here. IBIS competes with the Ginger brand of Hotels India Ltd and Akoi-Fast Back Bloom Hotels.
Singh added: “As a company, as a joint venture, we are very focused on India. We also recognize that India needs quality products. India will continue to be our title project.”
Last year, he said the 20-year-old hotel company’s revenue grew 14%, hovering between 85-89% in major markets.
“Mumbai and Delhi performed well for us. It was a great run for Kuvid after us, like many other hotel companies. Our prices are also growing due to our location.” “Our buildings are also becoming more and more efficient, so we see a lot of repetitive travelers. More than 50-60% of the people who use our hotel are repetitive travelers.”
‘The cost per key exceeds ₹Rs 4 million’
This week, the company opened a new property in BKC Commercial Centre in Mumbai, which has 206 rooms. Its per key cost is about ₹4 million.
Globally, IBIS has approximately 1,200 hotels. Currently in India, it now has 29 properties, one of which is under development. Indigo Hotels also owns properties in locations such as Barcelona, London, GSTAAD and Paris in Europe under its Miiro brand. Last July, Rahul Bhatia, managing director of InterGlobe Enterprises Group, sold a 2% stake in Globe Aviation. ₹$336 billion is spent on expanding hospitality and other developing businesses.
“We continue to build during the pandemic and have an active pipeline that we need to complete over the last four years. Now we are pausing and reevaluating our strategy and will focus primarily on “densification” strategies and revisiting and building in the same city in the use of dedicated vehicles,” Singer told Mint. ”
Over the past few years, the company has opened projects in Tarn, Vikrori Bangalore and Goa, with about 6,000 rooms across India. Now, it has nearly six hotels in Mumbai and Bangalore.
The company is actively looking for real estate in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR and Pune. Singh said it may not be in a hurry to go to the second-level city. He added: “Currently, this is my urban strategy. If there is an opportunity and the market is attractive enough and the numbers are piled up, then we will evaluate it.”
The next hotel set will be built to combine 160-220 rooms anywhere between. “We don’t want each hotel to have less than 150 rooms,” he said.
As an “activity market”, the country also has huge growth opportunities, Singh said. “The newly developed conference and event spaces for the city will also begin to mature within the next 3-5 years. This will increase the demand for hotels.”
