Berggruen sets sights on West Asia, Vietnam

Barely a year old in the hospitality business in India, Berggruen Hotels "" the budget boutique hotel chain "" plans to take its brand Keys beyond Indian shores to exotic locales.

The chain is setting its sights in West Asia and Vietnam, which attracted four million foreign tourists this year. It will foray into the luxury hotel segment in Egypt with a stand-alone property. The group will also come up with resort properties targeting the budget segment, the business traveller and tourists.

Berggruen plans to set up hotels in Casablanca and Rabat in Morocco, Alexandria and the Red Sea region in Egypt. It hopes to take advantage of the current unstructured market in these countries.

"We want to have an early mover advantage in these markets as we have lost an opportunity to develop decent properties in China when that market was growing. The West Asia and the South-East Asian cities are still in the stage of developing hotels. We do not want to dilute our focus by moving into markets where we have lost the advantage," said Sanjay Sethi, managing director and CEO, Keys.

The group is in negotiations with strategic and local partners for some of its ventures.

"In Egypt, we will have about six properties, with a luxury hotel already planned, otherwise the economies of scale would not work for us. We are in negotiations with the second largest business family in hotel industry there for our project. The project would be under Berggruen Holdings," said Sethi.

An international division headed by Atul Lal, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the base, has been put in place for international operations.

The group would be investing $60,000 for each of the Keys properties and $50 million for its UAE properties. Apart from the luxury and budget segments, Berggruen would also come up with a resort in Antalia, Turkey, with an investment of $30 million.

"The projects are currently being finalised and will take another 18 months to begin," said Sethi.