 "IHCL launches Claridges Collections, bets big on India's luxury market")
The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), part of the Tata group that manages the Taj brand of hotels, launched Claridges Collections after taking over the management of Delhi's iconic Claridges hotel on Friday.
Claridges Collections, a curated ensemble of boutique luxury hotels, will be positioned on a par with the company’s Taj brand.
The collection will be expanded to more hotels — The Taj Connemara in Chennai, which will be rebranded under the portfolio in the new financial year. Meanwhile, the Blue Diamond in Pune — currently under the SeleQtions brand — will be rebranded after it undergoes renovations over the coming year-and-a-half.
The new Claridges Collections will expand to over 20 hotels by 2030. Puneet Chatwal, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) at IHCL told Business Standard that bulk of the investments for the group, including Claridges, will be in India rather than international.
“The happening place in the world is India and so international is not our focus,” said Chatwal, who revealed that he had done his internship at The Claridges back in 1982.
Chhhatwal noted that the sector would be a large employment creator in the next 5-10 years. More so because the Centre is giving the sector great impetus through schemes and state governments attributing industry status along with incentives, including by Uttar Pradesh, earlier this week.
IHCL, which currently has a portfolio of 375 hotels (242 operational and 133 in the pipeline), will open 30-36 new hotels in FY26. Of these, its Gateway and Ginger brand of mid-to-high scale hotels will get a disproportionate share of growth, and hence, investments.
Under its ‘Accelerate 2030 strategy’ unveiled last year, IHCL had announced plans to have a portfolio of over 700 hotels along with doubling its revenue to ₹15,000 crore by then.
The company’s strategy of high capital allocation for growth at home will complement its asset-light strategy of expansion in the international markets.
“Our capital allocation strategy is very clear. We will selectively invest only in India or the Indian subcontinent. Outside India, it's a capital-light strategy, either driven by operating leases or management contracts. The brand in focus is Taj because we want to remain in the top five brands in luxury in the world,” he said.
The hotels behemoth clocked a 29 per cent rise in revenue to ₹2,533.04 crore in the December quarter from ₹1,963.84 in the year-ago period. Profit after tax (PAT) grew 29 per cent to ₹582.32 crore from ₹451.95 crore.