Six Continents Plans To Up Hotel Chain In India

Six Continents Hotels, the owner of the Intercontinental, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands of hotels, is planning to add seven more hotels to its portfolio of 14 in India within the next few years.

While five new hotels would sport the Inter-Continental brand, the other two would be called Crowne Plaza. The company, at present, has three Inter-Continentals and only one Crowne Plaza in India.

"We are tying up with two hotels in Mumbai, two each in Bangalore and Chennai and one in Goa," chief operating executive of Six Continents (south west Asia) Daniel Desbaillets told newspersons. He was here to announce the conversion of Parkroyal hotel in Delhi to Parkroyal Inter-Continental.

The company plans to phase out the Parkroyal name from the hotel in the next few years, Parkroyal Inter-Continental general manager Michael D Horsburgh said.

While the company has not yet identified a partner in Bangalore and Chennai, it has tied up with the Lalit Suri-promoted Bharat Hotels for two hotels -- one each at Goa and Mumbai.

Intercontinental Hotel Corporation (IHC) had recently picked up a 12.5 per cent stake in the Ravi Ghai-promoted GL Hotels Ltd by pumping in $3 million to set up a five-star deluxe property in Mumbai at Marine Drive. It is the only case in India where the international chain has picked up an equity stake.

These three hotels would be operational by the year end, officials said.

In mid 2000, Bass Hotels, which owns five brands including Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn had bought the Australian chain SPHC which owned the Parkroyal brand. The chain then changed its name to Six Continents Hotels.

At present, six continents hotels operates 14 hotels in India both on franchise and management contract basis, Horsburgh said and added the new franchisee partner Parkroyal Inter-Continental will have access to the group's distribution systems, customised programs and reservation system.