Keys Hotels, the flagship hotel brand of Berggruen Hotels Pvt. Ltd to use franchise model as part of its expansion strategy. This will enable it to grow and fuel its expansion plans of operating 52 hotels in India and abroad by 2015-16. The company has been receiving proposals of various hotels for franchise agreements. In the franchise model the owner of the hotel will continue to manage his hotel. The associating hotels will be benefited by the Keys’ brand name and its various marketing, partnerships and sales initiatives to provide them exposure to national and international consumers and improve their revenues. Keys hotels will also provide the hotels with their advanced IT solutions such as centralised reservation systems, customer feedback systems to ensure an upsurge in the performance of the hotels.
Speaking on the new business model, Sanjay Sethi, Managing Director and CEO, Berggruen Hotels Pvt. Ltd. said, “With a strong portfolio of 31 owned and managed hotels across India and a highly skilled and experienced core management team, we have developed one of the largest sales force in the country and offer the best in class sales and marketing strategies. By franchise associations, we will be able to extend these high end resources to the large part of the unstructured hotel industry irrespective of their location, and help improve their top line revenues along with gaining deeper penetration of brand Keys in the country.” He further added that the franchisees will be valuable to the company and it will take utmost care while seeking franchise partnerships to ensure there is synergy in thought process and larger goals for both parties.
Keys Hotels is keen on looking at more partners who can benefit from value-driven approach of the company in franchising their hotels under Keys brand name and has been preparing and sharpening its central infrastructure and marketing backbone to ensure uncompromised support to each of its hotels. Currently Keys Hotels has a total portfolio of 31 hotels of which 12 are operational and 19 are in various stages of development, slated to open in due course of time.
With the franchise associations, Keys Hotels expects to leverage its strong domain knowledge, distribution channels, reservation systems and its talent pool to create and develop value for owners that entrust their hotels to the Keys brand. The growing visibility of the Keys Brand and the network created by their own hotels is sure to achieve confidence amongst the owners who are looking for a committed hotel management company to optimize returns on their investments.
