The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) witnessed consistent performance from its portfolio in India and international markets. The group recently organised its third Sales Mission in Mumbai. This year, 59 IHCL properties participated in the event and interacted with partners in Mumbai.
Speaking about the performance of international hotels, Renu Basu, Senior Vice President- Global Sales & Marketing, IHCL said, “In the first quarter, all our international properties performed extremely well. There was a huge demand from India. The Cricket world cup and Wimbledon season boosted our London property. India is a very important source market for most of our international property.”
This year, the roadshow included five international properties including hotels from Sri Lanka, Dubai, Kathmandu, Bhutan, and Langkawi.
“We got an excellent response in last couple of roadshows from customers and hotels. We decided to continue with this format. This year we introduced a lot more interactions and presentations, to strengthen our product awareness. We have launched a lot of hotels which we have promoted through this annual showcase. We have also introduced the Ama Plantation Trails, which we promoted through the event. This year we had 59 properties participating in the event including international properties. In terms of international we have five from Sri Lanka, Dubai, Kathmandu, Bhutan, and Langkawi. India is a very important source market for all these properties,” Basu said.
Last year, IHCL, introduced the SeleQtions brand, these are collection of hotels which have their individual identity. “We launched the SeleQtions brand a few months ago, currently we have 12 hotels. Under this brand we have taken all our hotels which have its own brand equity in their name and are present in key markets. We have properties like Blue Diamond in Pune, President Hotel in Mumbai, The Savoy Ooty, Cidade de Goa. We believe in let these hotels stand out for what they are known as. In January we will launch the Connaught in Delhi under SeleQtions brand,” she informed.
The group has also revamped the brand ‘Ginger’ as a lean luxury and are focusing aggressively to expand this brand. “Our customers always demanded for a hotel in the hills and mountains, so recently we launched two properties in Theog, Himachal Pradesh and Rishikesh. We have also launched Taj Aravali Resort in November last year. We also launched Taj Hotel and Convention centre in Agra; this will offer options for the MICE segment. Ginger is definitely an important focus of our company. We have revisited the concept into lean luxury in the hospitality. It is a great product for the metro markets with an attractive price point. The new design of the hotel is a radical shift from the earlier style. Currently we operate 47 hotels under the Ginger brand, we just launched hotels in Dwarka, Sanand, Noida,” she said.
IHCL is also aggressively focusing on the MICE and weddings segment. The group has witnessed a growth of around 23-24 per cent in the MICE segment compared to previous year. “In 2018-19, we saw a 23-24 per cent growth in terms of MICE compared to the previous year. We have excellent MICE hotels and also infrastructure for weddings. Weddings are a very important segment for us, we have seven palace properties and around five cater to this segment,” she revealed.
