To Venture Into The East & South, Earmarks 30% Of Its Hotel Portfolio For Pilgrimage Segment
Mumbai, July 20, 2018: With the hospitality industry showing signs of recovery from the decade long slump, India’s premium mid-market hotel chain – Lords Hotels & Resorts has decided to switch its expansion drive into top gear to become a 40 properties chain by the end of FY 2020. With the demand for hotel rooms outpacing supply, the hotel chain is not only aiming at increasing its foot-prints at a faster rate but is also looking to venture into new geographies and focus on niche segments. With 26 operational hotels and four more scheduled to commence operations later this year, Lords Hotels & Resorts has been growing at an average of three hotels per year since its inception in 2007. India’s fastest growing hotel chain in the mid-market segment, Lords Hotels & Resorts will now also target at becoming the fastest growing pilgrimage hotel chain in the country.
“Our hotels across the country have registered room occupancies in the range of 70 – 75 per cent in the last Financial Year. While there was only a marginal rise in ARR, the RevPAR grew by almost 8-12 per cent. This is an indication of demand outpacing supply and the need for increasing room inventories,” says Mr P R Bansal, Chief Operating Officer, Lords Hotels & Resorts.
In the current financial year, the hospitality chain has plans of establishing hotel properties in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar in the East, and in Hyderabad and Chennai in the South.
“After a sluggish growth for close to a decade, the outlook appears positive for the industry and we plan to make the most of it while we can. Despite an unfavourable market scenario Lords Hotels & Resorts continued making strides to become India’s fastest growing hotel chain. We have identified potential projects in the East where Lords Hotels & Resorts has not made a mark yet and also in the South where we see tremendous growth in the coming years,” adds Mr Bansal.
Lords Hotels & Resorts is a home-grown, mid-market player with a focus on serving the burgeoning Indian traveller. With a spread of four sub-brands, viz. Lords Plaza, Lords Inn, Lords Eco Inn and Lords Resorts, the parent brand covers the entire spectrum of tourist segments.
“While many hotels brands, including international players, realizing the potential in the mid-market segment are making a foray into it today, we began our journey over a decade ago. We not only foresaw the prospective market but we also were deeply passionate about serving guests with the global hospitality standards. Our ideology of True Value stems from here. We’ve successfully managed to offer our guests the best of services and amenities bundled together at economical tariffs. We even broadened our portfolio of hotels to better accommodate the needs of the leisure tourist, the business traveller, the bag-packer as well as the pilgrimage tourist. In fact our next big focus is to serve the pilgrimage tourist for whom today the stay options fall largely in the unorganized domain,” says Mr Rishi Puri, Vice President, Lords Hotels & Resorts.
There are close to 200 iconic, sacred places of worship in the country and these sites receive footfalls in excess of 1.5 million tourists annually. While many of the top pilgrimage destinations today have branded hotels, a majority of the sites are served by stand-alone hotels which leave tourists with no option but to manage with what is available.
“We are very keen on developing a focused offering to the pilgrimage tourist segment. Out of the 26 properties that we currently operate, 7 are in the heart of such pilgrimage destinations and we are aiming at maintaining at least 30 per cent of our portfolio for pilgrimage tourists. With the Government’s impetus on Incredible India campaign, the designated tourism circuits will include a host of pilgrimage sites and we have identified Katra, Mathura, Vrindavan and a couple others for our upcoming projects dedicated for pilgrimage tourists,” concludes Mr Puri.
Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)
