Accor plans to open 30 new hotels in India in 3-5 years to tap potential

French hospitality major Accor plans to open 30 new properties in India in the next three to five years to tap the huge potential here, according to its Senior Vice President Operations, India and South Asia, Puneet Dhawan.

The hotel chain, which has nine brands in India out of 40 from its global portfolio, will also consider introducing more brands in the country to cater to different segments of customers here.

"Currently our pipeline is about 30 signed contracts...These are expected (to be operational) in the next three to five years," Dhawan told PTI when asked about the company's expansion plans in India.

These properties will be developed by local partners and run by Accor under its existing nine brands in India, including Fairmont, Novotel, Mercure and Pullman, among others. The investments on these new properties will be done by the partners.

Some of the cities where the new properties will come up include New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mohali, Bhubaneswar and Amritsar.

The hospitality chain is also looking to tap the potential in tier II and III cities, which have witnessed higher demand and growth of room rates after the Covid pandemic, Dhawan said.

"I think the pandemic kind of opened these tier two, tier three market because the rates that they were able to demand are actually higher than the cities like Delhi and Mumbai and that has encouraged developers or investors to develop in these local markets," he added.

When asked if Accor would consider bringing more global brands in India, Dhawan said, "Currently nine brands are present in India out of the 40-plus (global) brands, but the scale and the diversity India has and the growing middle class or the growing spending power in India, we believe there's a market for many more of Accor brands that could be introduced into India."

These could be from a lifestyle brand or some of the other brands like Swisstel or Mvenpick, he added.

"We definitely think (with) the right partner in the right location, we will be able to bring some of the other brands into India as well," Dhawan said.

He also said Accor could bring some other brands even earlier depending on the situation.

"We do have a few conversion brands. For example, we have got a brand called Handwritten (Collection), which could be introduced in India," he said.

The conversion brands focus on bringing existing hotels, which "need to be brought up to international standards and requires the international distribution" under the Accor umbrella and provide benefits of features like the loyalty programme that it has.

On the potential of the Indian hospitality market, Dhawan said, "India today has about 1,60,000 branded hotel rooms, (on the other hand) Dubai has 165,000 rooms and growing. So that tells you how under penetrated the hospitality landscape is in India and there's so much opportunity across the brands."

At present Accor has 61 hotels in India under its nine brands with about 11,500 operating rooms.