Mars Hospitality, which has seen tremendous response for it’s Waterstones Hotel in Mumbai, is set to expand its portfolio with three new properties in Mussoorie – Pine Tree Lodge, Shamrock Cottage and Tabor lodge. These are smaller properties that are more of bed & breakfast accommodations, revealed Saket Gupta, Head – Sales & Marketing, Mars Enterprise. In addition, the company will be adding a service apartment establishment right next to the international airport in the Waterstones Hotel campus in 2016. This will focus on providing world-class accommodation to expats and corporate employees working in the Bandra-Andheri-Powai belt, he added.
“The hospitality sector in India has grown massively over the past decade. Two decades ago, the hotels were broadly classified into luxury, mid-scale and budget categories. However, with growing competition we now see further fragmentation within the categories especially mid-scale and budget. Customising your offerings based on guest demands, is the need of the hour. Customisation will be our key strategy for 2015-16,” Gupta stated.
The Waterstones Hotel has seen great response in 2014, with the property growing to become a well-known name in the Mumbai market, and notching ARR and RevPAR of Rs. 6200 and Rs. 5500 respectively. When asked about 2015, Gupta revealed that the property has managed to maintain an average occupancy of 86 per cent in the first quarter, with the F&B contributing a healthy 40-45 per cent to the total revenue.
“Our target audience has always been corporate. Corporates, mostly expats, contribute 74 per cent of our total business. We are now focusing on new avenues to increase our market share in the leisure segment. We are working with multiple online travel agents that focus on holiday packages. A lot of banks and other institutions these days offer special vacation packages to their HNI and U-HNI clients. Ensuring presence on such elite platforms definitely helps attract leisure guests and at the same time help showcase your property to the high-spenders. This is a good way of reaching out to a niche elite crowd,” Gupta said.
The travel trade has remained a vital part of Mars Hospitality’s strategy. According to Gupta, for any hotel, travel trade is as important a segment as corporate because the hotel can expect great volumes of business from travel trade. “It is imminent to wisely choose the travel companies you tie-up with. It takes a lot of patience and hard-work to understand and build relations with the travel companies. It is important that you have at least a dedicated resource to handle the travel trade business,” he added.
The company has planned roadshows in metro and tier II cities to increase visibility, and is also targeting a year-long inbound series for continuous business. Understanding the pulse of the market and offering market specific rates is extremely important for hotel business, concluded Gupta.
