EIH to focus more on management contracts of hotels: Oberoi

The EIH Limited, which runs the Oberoi and Trident hospitality brands in the country and abroad, will now focus more on management contracts of other property rather than owning them, its Executive Chairman PRS Oberoi said today.

Presently, the proportion between owned, substantially owned and managed property is 70:30. "We'll try to reverse that ratio", Oberoi told reporters after the company's AGM here.

He said that it was not that the company would not build any hotel in future. "We want to be asset light. We have too much of real estate. No other hospitality chain has so much property. We have property in Bangalore, Goa and extra land in Agra," he said.

Oberoi said the debt of the EIH was very low at Rs 500 crore. "We want to be very conservative. Our borrowings should be low", he said.

To a query, he said the company would like to build city hotels, besides resorts abroad. "We are going to manage a resort property at Masai Mara in Kenya. We have city hotels in Dubai, Doha, Qatar. We are looking at other projects. But we'll not limit ourselves only to resorts abroad", he added.

To his speech to shareholders, he said the GST rate of 28 per cent on luxury hotels were seriously affecting travel and tourism in the country. International travellers were accustomed to lower GST rates in other countries.

The EIH had signed for a luxury Oberoi Hotel and Trident brand in Koh Tan Island in Thailand, Oberoi said.

The company's oldest owned property Oberoi Grand in Kolkata would be renovated and 50 rooms and suites would be added, he said.

The cost of adding the 50 rooms would be Rs 100 crore, Oberoi added.