Bengaluru
Hilton Worldwide, a global hotel chain headquartered in Virginia, plans to double its presence in the country over the next five years, said Navjit Ahluwalia, senior vice president and country head, Hilton India.
“We plan to double our presence in India over the next five years,” he said. “We currently have 14 hotels in the country with around 10 developers under development and the pipeline continues to grow,” Mr Ahluwalia said Peppystores.
Those hotels, planned under multiple brands, would be built in Varanasi, Jabalpur, Mumbai and other parts of the country and would be operational in the next three years, he said.
Hilton currently has 24 hotels in the country under five brands: Conrad, Hilton, Hilton Garden In, DoubleTree and Hampton.
Hilton also planned to launch luxury brands such as Waldorf Astoria in all metropolitan areas and key resort locations including Goa and Rajasthan. The company will also soon bring “full-service” lifestyle brands like Curio, Tapestry and Canopy to India, he added.
According to Mr. Ahluwalia, most Hilton properties in the country would be “full-service” properties, encompassing commercial, leisure and MICE facilities.
“In India, the majority of the population is looking for affordable ‘full service’ hotels. Such hotels will do well in the country as customers want different categories/rooms at different prices for business, leisure, meetings and big weddings,” he noted.
See robust recovery
The hospitality sector in the country was expected to recover between October 2022 and March 2023 to reach pre-COVID-era numbers and is already seeing a recovery of 50% of pre-COVID levels, Mr Ahluwalia said.
“The domestic leisure travel segment has also recovered significantly, a trend we are also seeing in China. We expect an overall recovery in the third quarter of calendar 2022,” he added.
