Hotels Hit Rocketship Growth in the Second Quarter

A large part of India travels by bus and rail. And taking advantage of the country’s significant leap in online train ticketing is Ixigo — including its subsidiary ConfirmTkt — which leads the way with nearly 50% market share of India’s online travel. 

The overall nights booked on Airbnb in India have grown by almost 70% in 2022 as compared to pre-pandemic levels while domestic nights grew by 110%.

Hotel occupancy and room rates have bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers, primarily due to the soaring demand for the G20 Summitto be held in New Delhi on September 9 to 10. 

Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Limited has joined forces with luxury hotel group Oberoi Hotels and Resorts to co-manage three hospitality projects spread across India and the UK.

India is expected to overtake Germany to become the world’s third most powerful travel and tourism market by 2032, according to World Travel and Tourism Council’s Economic Impact Research.

The Google pages of many hotels — including premier properties — in the Himalayan hill towns of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in West Bengal have been defaced for fraud ahead of the holiday travel rush. Anybody looking for hotels in Darjeeling using the search engine will come across prominent photographs containing the hackers’ phone numbers over a section displaying pictures of rooms and amenities. “We have been lately facing incidents where fraudsters are posting their mobile numbers with payment options to book not only our properties but also several others in the region. We are continually monitoring this and flagging all such posts as ‘spam’ for Google to review and have them removed,” said Viraj Oberoi, director of Elgin Hotels & Resorts, a luxury heritage hotels chain with properties in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim. Cyber miscreants are removing hotel details and creating their own profiles with personal contact details, said Sandipan Ghosh, general secretary of regional travel trade body Eastern Himalayas Travel and Tour Operators’ Association. “Surprisingly, they’re also luring customers to pay in advance while knocking off the goods and services tax charge,” Ghosh said. In India, the goods and services tax on hotels range anywhere between 12-18 percent, depending on the pricing. Customers, while trying to book hotels online for Darjeeling, have been duped to pay advance amounts to bank accounts which don’t belong to the owners of the accommodations. “We’re in touch with the cyber cell department to track such incidents closely and take action accordingly,” Ghosh added. 

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) — the company belonging to Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani — is set to foray into the hospitality industry under its new arm Reliance SOU, engaging in hotels, resorts, and service apartments that will provide short-term lodging facilities. According to the details available with the registrar of companies, the company is planning to develop hotels and resorts near the Statue of Unity in the west Indian state of Gujarat’s Kevadia. In a stock exchange filing, Reliance said that it had incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary called Reliance SOU (RSOUL) with the intention of developing commercial properties. However, it did not elaborate on whether it would manage those properties directly, an Indian daily said. Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited (RIIHL) — a wholly owned subsidiary of the listed parent RIL — had earlier bought a 73.4 percent stake in the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York for $98 million. It also acquired Stoke Park Country Club, another UK-based hotel, for $69 million. 

Thailand-based Minor Hotels will launch its luxury Anantara brand in India with Anantara Jaipur Hotel in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2023. The hotel will feature 150 guest rooms and suites, including four terrace suites with private plunge pools, and a 160-square-meter royal suite with a large terrace and private pool. Besides bars and restaurants, other facilities will include a spa, beauty salon, gym, semi-outdoor pool, kids’ club, and event spaces. The hotel will be able to cater to weddings of up to 2,500 guests with its collection of indoor and outdoor venues. “Jaipur is one of India’s most vibrant destinations, with a huge destination wedding potential, and I look forward to working with (owner) Ajay Gangwal and his team to launch our first Anantara in India, which is a significant strategic step for Minor Hotels,” said Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotels. Minor Hotels currently has a portfolio of more than 530 hotels and resorts in 56 countries across its brands, which include Anantara, Avani, Elewana, Oaks, NH, nhow and Tivoli. In other developments, Hilton announced that it, too, has an interest in Jaipur, where it will debut its luxury brand, the Waldorf Astoria. Radisson, too, is thinking luxury, and announced on Wednesday that it would be debuting its luxury lifestyle brand, Radisson Collection in India with the signing of the first hotel in Hyderabad.

Occupancy in Indian hotels is expected to improve to 66 percent in 2023, according to hospitality research firm HVS Anarock’s latest report. India’s hospitality sector ended 2022 with occupancy in the 59-61 percent range, up 15-17 percentage points from the previous year, the report said. Average room rates recovered fully in 2022, crossing 2021 levels by 37-39 percent and revenue per available room in 2022 increased by 89-91 percent over the previous year. Some 166 new hotels with 14,885 rooms were signed in 2022, indicating a 33 percent increase in brand signings by keys over the previous year. “We expect India-wide occupancy to improve to 66 percent in 2023, which coupled with a 16-17 percent increase in average room rates will push revenue per available room to $57 during the year, almost 18 percent higher than the pre-pandemic level recorded in 2019,” said Mandeep Singh Lamba president of South Asia at HVS Anarock.

Potentially IPO-bound budget hotel operator and aggregator Oyo’s U.S. business has recorded a 48 percent revenue growth from bookings on its own platforms — such as the app, website, mobile web and call centers — in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. While Oyo’s app generated 99 percent growth, revenue from bookings via the company’s call centers reported a 59 percent surge for the quarter. Earlier this month, Oyo had announced its plans to add more than 100 hotels in the U.S. this year across the states of Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, its fastest-growing state. This is nearly double the number of hotels the company added to its portfolio in 2022. “While bookings through online travel agents such Booking.com and Expedia Group play an important role in increasing revenues for our hotel partners, direct demand through Oyo’s own platforms leads to better margins for our hoteliers,” said Gautam Swaroop, chief executive of Oyo International. Swaroop added that the company experienced a 3x growth in app conversions and 2x growth in conversions from the call center using price optimizations and by creating operational efficiencies, performance management and better incentive structures in the organization. An earlier Skift report had mentioned that Oyo is likely to launch the initial public offering around the Indian festival of Diwali in November, once it gets the approval from India’s capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Nearly 97 percent of Indian travelers intend to make greener travel decisions over the coming 12 months, according to Booking.com’s annual Sustainable Travel Report. Amid rising climate anxiety, Indian travelers say they are making conscious accommodation and transport choices with 83 percent of respondents feeling that doing so would help protect the planet for future generations. Now in its eighth year, the research highlights a dilemma where people are forced to choose between affordability and making sustainable travel choices. Around 84 percent of Indians think the global energy crisis and rising cost of living are impacting their spending plans. Nearly two-thirds of them (66 percent) believe sustainable travel options are too expensive, while 80 percent are willing to pay more for sustainable travel options to feel reassured they are driving impact. “India has emerged as one of the top 10 countries with 20,000 properties now being recognized for their sustainability efforts on Booking.com. We are listening and together with our partners across the industry, we are examining every part of the trip to not only support our travelers but also benefit local communities and environment,” said Santosh Kumar, country manager of India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia at Booking.com. The report is based on insights gathered from more than 33,000 travelers across 35 countries and territories.  

A revival in domestic air travel to nearly pre-pandemic level propelled India to the big leagues of major aviation markets, according to the trade body, the International Air Transport Association’s latest market analysis report. Domestic travel in India missed the pre-Covid level by 2.2 percent in February 2023 in terms of passenger revenue kilometers, the study said. The country also emerged as the top domestic market in terms of passenger load factor — which studies how efficiently an airline fills seats and generates revenue — when compared to countries such as the U.S., China and Japan, the report said. India recorded passenger load factors of 81.6 percent in February, 85.2 percent in January, 88.9 percent in December 2022, and 87.9 percent in November 2022. Domestic air passenger traffic for all markets measured for February surged 25.2 percent over the year-ago period. Besides aircraft manufacturers, international airlines too are eyeing the growth potential of the Indian aviation market. Just last week, Hungary budget carrier Wizz Air’s CEO Jozsef Varadi said India is a growing opportunity. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is another airline that is planning to expand its capacity in the country, as it looks to drive 20 percent growth from India in the next year, the airline’s CEO Antonoaldo Neves said during his recent visit to the country.