Taj Group's Ginger bets on asset-light model, 55 new hotels, and rebranding

The renovations at the old hotels will be complete in two and a half years and tariffs will range between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000

Seven months after he took charge, Puneet Chhatwal, Indian Hotels managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), whose operating mantra has been profitability, kicked off an entire overhaul of Taj’s Ginger brand of hotels. The ambitious plans involve adding 55 new ones over the next five years, which will catapult the company’s number of rooms from 3,900 to 7,500, using an asset-light lease model. That is expected to push the total number of rooms up considerably under the Taj Group to around 25,000.

While the past has seen the budget chain run into losses, Chhatwal’s take is the brand