 "Mahindra Holidays and Resorts likely to open its first Signature property")
Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India, which recently announced its entry into the leisure hospitality space, is expected to open its first hotels property under Mahindra Signature Resorts in Theog by FY27, followed by two to three more resorts owned by the company starting the next financial year.
“We are in a secular growth mode. Incomes are going up, second, connectivity is getting better, and people are looking for shorter breaks and weekend breaks,” Manoj Bhat, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), Mahindra Holidays, told Business Standard, adding that according to the company’s recent survey, people now holiday for as much as about 30 days in a year.
Additionally, he noted that 80 per cent of people want experiences, not just holidays, with a strong demand for immersive and local experiences.
Bhat also highlighted that the country’s branded leisure segment has only 14 per cent penetration in the market, and this market size is expected to reach $4 billion by FY30.
This comes a few days after the Mumbai-based company, currently operating in the vacation ownership segment, announced to initially invest ₹1,000 crore to set up Mahindra Hotels and Residences India, a wholly-owned subsidiary through which it plans to enter the leisure hospitality business. The luxury brand, Mahindra Signature Resorts, is targeting to have 2,000 keys by FY30.
The company has about ₹1,500 crore to support its investments for a period of three to four years, without the need to raise funds.
“We don’t believe we have to raise funds (for expansion plans for core business and luxury leisure brand). We should be able to manage it through internal accruals, and most of our growth is coming from the capital-light model. In some cases, we put 30 per cent into a project and the rest, 70 per cent, we have enough partners to help us,” Bhat added.
While Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India’s core business offers family holidays primarily through vacation ownership in a membership programme (for 10, 15 or 25 years at a fee), he added that under the new product Keystone, members will have certain privileged access to Mahindra Signature Resort, along with some commercial benefits.
“We are going to shut down or exit inventory where it is lower quality based on customer feedback. We are, for the first time in our history, shutting down resorts and doing a complete renovation for a refreshed, brand-new look for those resorts,” he said. The Mahindra group company had also announced plans to rebrand Club Mahindra to Club M. Bhat added that the rebranding plan was to showcase the change towards premiumisation of its current portfolio and scale its network to 10,000 keys from about 5,800 keys by FY30.
The renovation of its resorts under Club M is in places like Munnar, Poovar, Kumbalgarh and Jaisalmer. It has an inventory base of 5,742 across 118 resorts as of September, compared with an inventory base of 5,794 keys across 126 resorts in Q1FY26.