Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) net profit rose 15 per cent in the second quarter after excluding the one-off exceptional gain of Rs 307 crore in the previous year. Net profit fell 45 per cent when compared with the previous year's earnings after including a one-off gain.
According to multiple sources close to the development, Mercedes-Benz is already in talks with multiple developers in Gurugram for a luxury branded residence project.
4.5 million weddings are expected across India.
The Indian stock market in the October-November period sees high trading activity due to increased consumer spending, festive demand, upbeat sentiment, renewed investor confidence, and the auspicious Muhurat trading session. This impacts many stocks and sectors in the festive season.
'While the concept was introduced globally over four decades ago, branded residences have taken off now in India.'
India's hospitality sector is rolling out the red carpet for investors. A flurry of upcoming IPOs, or initial public offerings, the entry of new players, and ambitious expansion plans by Indian and global hotel brands are ushering in what could be the industry's most formalised era yet. Leading the charge are real estate titans, who are turning their hotel arms into global hospitality chains.
Two years after IHCL - one of Asia's biggest hotel chains which runs the Taj chain of hotels and resorts in addition to three other brands - had clinched the deal and subsequently demolished the multi-storey 434-room Hotel Sea Rock, it is now awaiting clearance to start construction.
Bombay House is different from any other conglomerate's headquarters. While every visitor is frisked at the entrance of the colonial-era building, one should not be surprised to see a street dog stroll in nonchalantly. For decades, specific instructions have been issued to the staff to allow a free entry and exit for the strays who may want to come in.
There were certainly qualities adhering to the Tata Group, which emanated from the persona of Ratan Tata. Most notable of these would be the low profile he maintained, which sharply contrasted the in-your-face celebrity status, celebration of wealth and pursuit of importance many of liberalised India's rich, love, notes Shyam G Menon.
Ratan Tata: A Life, the much awaited biography, reveals that after a year of 'parallel running', Tata began having second thoughts about Cyrus Mistry's 'suitability'. 'Mistry targeted Ratan, the man who had elevated him from virtual oblivion into the mainstream of the Tatas...'
The hospitality industry has seen plenty of interest since the catastrophic impact of the pandemic, which led to losses in FY21. The hotel industry market cap has more than tripled since 2019 on the combination of a strong earnings rebound and positive surprises, as well as three recent listings. The industry has good tailwinds. The anticipation is, demand for rooms will outrun supply for a few years despite capacity expansions.
'The facility works on Apple's iPhone and everything is damaged -- CNC machines, computers and CCTVs worth crores.'
An average Indian couple spends around 2x on weddings versus education (pre-primary to graduation).
Tata Neu, the super app from the Tata group, has been downloaded by over 7 million users within seven weeks of its launch. And, the company wants to ramp this up to 150 million users in the next two years, said senior executives of Tata Digital in an internal magazine of the Tata group. According to data from App Annie, a mobile app tracking platform, the Tata Neu app has been downloaded by over 11 million users.
In the longer-term, analysts expect IHCL to see revenue CAGR of 15 per cent between FY23 to FY25 and Ebitda CAGR of 20 per cent in the same period. Analysts are seeing targets of around Rs 375-Rs 380 for the stock, which is a significant upside from the current Rs 313.
After a two-year lull, the deal pipeline in India's hospitality sector, which has witnessed a strong revival since the second wave of the pandemic receded, is running full. Family offices, high net-worth individuals (HNIs) and institutional investors are looking at the sector with renewed interest, according to investment and transaction advisory firms working on multiple deals. Most of them declined to divulge details of the deals for reasons of confidentiality. The cumulative debt of the tourism, hotels and restaurant sector rose 8.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 64,408 crore as of March 25, 2022 against Rs 59,519 crore on March 26, 2021, according to the Reserve Bank of India.
The move to demerge the hotel business into a separate entity by ITC has brought back focus on hotel stocks, which have already seen a good run thus far in fiscal 2023-24 (FY24). Analysts believe there could be more gains in store over the next one year for the stocks in this sector, but suggest investors put in money on a correction only from a long-term perspective. Hotel stocks, according to A K Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital, have seen a good run as travel picked up post Covid in India. Not only have the room rents increased, the occupancy, too, has surged.
In a departure from the past, when IHCL adopted the organic route for entering markets like London and New York, this time around the expansion will be acquisition-led.
India Inc is gearing up for a slugfest this year and from tech to paints, new battlegrounds are emerging, observes Indrajit Gupta, co-founder, Founding Fuel.
Hotels are also relying on couples who had earlier planned destination weddings but are now considering options within the country.
The country's largest hotel firm, Indian Hotels Company, reported a net profit of Rs 234 crore, a fall of 38 per cent from the previous financial year.
'With Ramaland, the tourism department is looking to attract children and adults alike. It'll be learning with entertainment.'
Ratan Tata-led interim management of Tata Sons is seeking to oust Mistry from his positions in the operating group firms, including IHCL and Tata Motors
The court, however, asked the civic body to grant six months "breathing time" to the company in vacating the hotel in case they lose out in the e-auction.
The hospitality sector has been hit very hard by the pandemic. In the past 18 months, it has lost business, first because of the harsh lockdowns and after that because of lack of demand due to the ensuing economic slowdown. Most hospitality businesses have sustained low revenues and losses since April 2020. Is this the classic case of a beaten-down cyclical sector that may be close to bottoming out?
Tata Group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the group's recently launched super app Neu is on an open architecture and it will host non-group brands as well. The Tatas finally launched its super app Tata Neu on April 7, after piloting it for months, but the group chairman claimed there was no delay in the commercial launch. Stating that the app has received an overwhelming response in the past seven days of going live, Chandrasekaran said the app is on an open architecture and will host products and services from non-Tata group companies.
Intimate getaways offered in the form of homestays by hotels are proving to be the flavour of this extraordinary and difficult time. Not far from cities, they offer a pleasant respite from homebound lives, says Pavan Lall.
The 36 new properties, which will also include expansion across two new countries, will add 5,431 rooms.
Tata group's hospitality firm Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) on Friday said its 'Taj' brand has been rated as the strongest hotel brand in the world. According to the 'Hotels 50 2021' report by Brand Finance, Taj topped the strongest brands list for having stood resilient in spite of the challenges posed by the pandemic, besides other achievements.
OYO Rooms offers rooms for Rs 1,200-5,500 in all major cities.
Cleartrip acquired Saudi travel firm Flyin last July and it provides bilingual ground support service and itineraries for inbound tourists.
The strident support from the hotels comes at a time when the industry is itself caught off guard with a sharp dip in both in-bound traffic from foreign markets, reduced domestic traction as well as a total shut-down of MICE business that has led the country top players by market cap to lose over half their value in just a little over a month.
The key risks against a fast recovery would include long delays in business travel resumption, delays in commissioning, etc.
The Tata group on Thursday launched its super app, Tata Neu, bringing all its brands in one platform as it seeks to play a major role in the Indian ecommerce space currently dominated by the likes of Amazon and Flipkart.
Shivani Shinde reports. The youngest member of the Tata group, the much-awaited Tata Neu, has finally been launched for people across the country. The 'super app' offers a number of services ranging from financial services to tech, travel and even groceries. The app takes off with a customer base of 120 million, with 2,500 offline stores. According to the Tata group, the app will be a one-stop destination for all consumer needs. The super app also offers a bouquet of financial offers like Unified Payments Interface (UPI), bill payments, loans and insurance. Tata Neu will also provide other services like fashion, gadgets, groceries, travel and health.
Large chains like the Marriott and Taj that are estimated to consume two million plastic bottles a year have taken a conscious decision to first eliminate PET bottles on their premises and then reduce the use of single-use plastic altogether, saying they are all for a sustainably environment-friendly tomorrow.
The sudden resignation and almost-immediate announcement of a successor came as a surprise to many.
Encouraged by a steady recovery seen in the first two weeks of February, hospitality firms expect the business hotels in metros including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad that have been lagging the leisure hotels in terms of revenue per available room (RevPar) to catch up in the coming months. Huge pent-up demand for MICE (meetings, incentives, conference and exhibitions) as companies slowly return to hosting physical events coupled with easing of the recently announced restrictions on international travel, will also help in getting closer to pre-Covid levels of revenue, they said. The Omicron wave that peaked in January had derailed the strong month-on-month recovery seen by the hotels since August.
The palace, currently run by JLR, will be offered to bidders on a long-term management contract.
Few of these highly sought-after socialising and networking hubs are seeing much activity as regulars are missing in action.