ITC to open 25 Fortune hotels in 12-18 months

ITC, the Kolkata-based cigarette major, will open 25 new hotels under the Fortune brand over the course of next 12-18 months, a senior company official said.

Fortune, which is one of the four hotel brands, is a mid-market to upscale brand of ITC. It is largely a managed brand of the company under which it runs 33 hotels presently. The company runs the ITC Hotels (luxury), WelcomeHotels (premium) and WelcomeHeritage (heritage brand including forts and palaces).

Pawan Verma, senior executive vice-president, hotels division, ITC said, "Fortune is one of the fastest growing brands for the company. The brand has suffered the least even during the downturn of last year where our luxury and premium brands did take a hit. We will look to further have more properties under its fold."

The executive was speaking on the sidelines of inaugurating the Fortune Park LakeCity in Thane, India's first branded hotel which shares its premises with a hospital. This 58-room business hotel, which is owned by Jupiter LifeLine Hospitals, is built to service medical tourists.

According to Verma, the market size of medical tourism in India is $2.4 billion and is growing at 27 per cent annually. India's share of medical tourist will be a mere 2.4 per cent by 2012. The country received 1.1 million medical tourists last year, registering a growth of 17 per cent.

Although the number of hotels under the Fortune brand is much higher than other brands of the company, its contribution to the turnover is marginal.

"The ITC and Welcome brands contribute 80 per cent of the total revenue from hotels. The company presently has 15 properties under these two brands. We will be setting up two properties under the ITC brand in Chennai and Kolkata in the next two years and are also looking at management contracts for Welcome", added Verma.

The company is expecting a strong revival this calender year which would translate into a turnover growth of 20-25 per cent next financial year, however the thrust will remain on volumes and not on room rates.

"We are still a year away from a complete revival in business when compared to pre-downturn period which is 2008", said Verma.