The Indian market is very important for Marriott International, and the company will continue to expand further in the country, said the company's president and CEO Arne M. Sorenson, who was in Bengaluru to launch its 100th hotel in India—the 360 room, Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield Hotel and Convention Centre, in association with the Prestige Group.
Though China has more hotels than India, and the company has the largest number of its hotels located in the United States, Marriott International has aggressive expansion plans for the Indian market, and already has more than 50 signed projects in the pipeline.
“Compared to India, we are big in the US, where we are present since the late 1950s, and have more than 4,500 hotels. In China also we have more hotels than in India, but we have plans to expand aggressively in the Indian market. In the next three years, we plan to expand and add another 50 hotels in India whom...We are currently working on 50 additional leads. If things go well, we may have around in total 200 hotels in India in the next five years. We have seen huge demand for hotels in the leisure segment too, besides the business segment,” said Sorenson.
Interestingly, the newly signed 50 projects of Marriott International in the country is a mix of leisure and business hotels and the company has plans to open some hotels in the mid-scale segment in tier II cities like as Jaipur and Ahmedabad. With this the company aims to raise its room inventory to more than 30,000 rooms over the next few years.
The company claims that it is seeing a demand for its upscale and luxury brands, and has currently three Ritz-Carlton projects under development in Pune, Mumbai and Delhi. Marriott today has more than 20,000 rooms and 15 brands in 32 cities across the country and more than 30,000 people currently work for the company in India, and another 3,000 people are expected to join the company in 2018.
“Emerging markets, like India, have tremendous growth opportunity for brands such as Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield by Marriott and Four Points by Sheraton, all of which drove our growth last year with seven openings. Growth prospects in the secondary and tertiary markets will continue to be a major focus for us in 2018.” said Neeraj Govil, area vice president, South Asia, Marriott International.
Irfan Razack, CMD of the Prestige Group, observed that the hospitality industry is a dynamic one with the needs of the clientele constantly changing. “We are dealing across a spectrum of clients with varied needs. Bengaluru, being a technology hub, is a city for business travellers and as a developer, we have capitalised on the business convention traffic. For us, the segment of corporate travel is a major driver for year on year growth of our hospitality portfolio,” remarked Razack.
One of the largest hospitality company in the world, Marriott International Inc is based in Bethesda, Maryland, in the United States, and has a portfolio of more than 6,500 properties in 30 different hotel brands across 127 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the globe.