How India's Tree of Life Is Creating a Place for Itself in the Hospitality Sun

25.08.2023 - 13:36 / skift.com / Peden Doma Bhutia / Himmat Anand

Tree of Life Resorts and Hotels, a boutique property chain from India, has seen impressive growth from just five properties pre-Covid to 13 properties currently, with the 14th property opening next month.

Founder Himmat Anand said he has Covid-19 to thank for this growth, as he believes it helped position his resorts perfectly.

During Covid, the hotel chain registered the best two financial years since opening in 2013. Anand credits this success to having the right product at the right time.

Anand, who had spent five years as the chief operating officer at Kuoni, India’s largest inbound operating company at that time, realized that he had hit a career ceiling and decided to embark on his entrepreneurial journey in 2009.

At a time when most hotel companies were focused on opening properties in urban areas, he chose to construct 14 villas on his six-acre estate just 30 minutes from Jaipur airport.

People warned him against it with some even predicting that this was doomed for failure.

With hindsight, Anand believes not being from a hospitality background helped him experiment, even as he admitted, “I’ve been through the toughest period of my life from 2010 to 2013 trying to put that product on the map.”

But the choice to not be near the city center stood him in good stead almost 10 years later, when post-Covid travelers came searching. Space and privacy, which were the tenets on which Tree of Life came into existence, were exactly what these social-distancing visitors wanted.

“The mindset of the traveling public changed post-Covid as they avoided 100-room city hotels with long corridors and elevators. Covid gave me the opportunity to tick all those boxes which the guest wanted,” the founder of the boutique resort chain said.

Once the lockdown in India was lifted, Anand lost no time in rehiring people and also upped the company’s social media game.

As people were avoiding flying at the time, having hotels within five hours’ driving distance from source markets helped Tree of Life launch driving holidays and staycation programs. “In those two years of Covid, we signed five hotels,” he said.

According to Anand, owners saw logic in what Tree of Life had been doing and he’s happy he didn’t expand his wish list. “We continue to remain small. Our smallest property has six keys and the largest has 20.”

Expansion had never been on Anand’s mind when he started in 2010. “When I started  Tree of Life Jaipur, my intent was to only have one resort. But then my son joined me and aspired to take the brand wider.”

The expansion from one to 13 for Tree of Life actually started from 2015 onwards and now two more properties have been confirmed. By March 2024, Anand expects to have 18 Tree of Life Hotels and Resorts.

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