Goldman Sachs-backed SAMHI Hotels Pvt Ltd will be focussing mainly on tier-1 cities for the next few years.
“The reason that we would want to stick to tier-1 cities for at least two-three years is that the hotel industry in these markets gives a certainty about how these markets will behave in future. Also, the base of supply in these markets is quite large,” said Ashish Jakhanwala, CEO and Managing Director, SAMHI.
He added that tier-1 market has diverse demands so if one segment gets impacted it does not create large displacement in business and most of the tier-1 cities have some bit of manufacturing, telecom, IT, and banking that makes them more preferable.
The company currently owns 29 hotels, one each in Coimbatore, Vizag and Nashik; the remaining 26 are in the tier-1 cities.
Meanwhile, in the next one year, the company will work towards rebranding the hotels it acquired last year. In 2017, the company acquired British hotel chain Premier Inn’s five hotels in Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, Delhi and Pune.
“From January 2018 to June 2019, we will spend around ₹200 crore in just renovations and rebranding. If I include the acquisition cost, then the figure will be ₹500 crore,” Jakhanwala said.