The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), which runs the Taj group of hotels, is bullish on the hospitality industry in the country even though its net profit at Rs 50.48 crore for the quarter ended December 2011 stood flat compared with the profit of Rs 50.29 crore posted in the same quarter previous year.
IHCL managing director and chief executive officer, Raymond N Bickson, said India had doubled its hotel rooms inventory from 63,000 in 2003 to 130,000 on Tuesday. “Yet the occupancy rate in the country remains high at over 60 percent,” he said adding that the industry would continue to see the same market trend.
Stating that domestic travellers had also increased from 420 million in 2003 to 740 million now, he said at this rate India would need 400,000 to 500,000 hotel rooms a few years down the line.
Keeping pace with this growth rate, IHCL is also expanding its hotel network and, according to Bickson, had opened one hotel in the country every six weeks during the past 7 years.
