Sarovar Hotels & Resorts is expanding its business in East Africa by opening three hotels there by 2016, including two Portico hotels in Nairobi, Kenya. The company sees strong growth potential in Africa due to increasing business ties with India. Separately, Preferred Hotels & Resorts rebranded under a single brand and aims to improve awareness and drive growth. It now represents all 650 of its member hotels under the Preferred Hotels & Resorts brand and aims to expand its number of member hotels in India to 45 by the end of 2018. Sarovar Hotels is also expanding in India, with plans to open 10 new hotels annually and renew contracts for 95% of existing hotels.

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SAROVAR HOTELS AND RESORTS EYES
EAST AFRICA FOR BUSINESS EXPANSION
PHG REBRANDS TO PREFERRED HOTELS & RESORTS
SEESSTRONGGROWTHPOTENTIALINTHATREGION;TOOPERATETHREEHOTELSINAFRICABY2016
AIMSTOEXPANDITSNUMBEROFMEMBERHOTELSTO45BYTHEENDOF2018ININDIA
Sulagna Ghosh
Sarovar Hotels & Resorts is planning to bolster
its presence in the region of Africa with the ad-
dition of The Zehneria Portico, Nairobi, opening
its doors in April 2015. With this, Sarovar Hotels
will be operating two Porticos in Nairobi. The
Company is also looking at opening a Premiere
property in Nairobi in the mid of 2016, which will
make it to three hotels in one city and one coun-
try. Ajay K Bakaya, Executive Director, Sarovar
Hotels, said that the idea is to expand in Africa,
where they see enormous business and growth
opportunities. “Africa is a key market where a lot
of Indian companies are expanding, and we are
looking to cater to this growing demand. The
economy is settled, infrastructure is taking
shape and most of that region particularly East
Africa has a historic link that dates back to 3-5
generations. This helps a lot when you’re an in-
ternational company based out of India,” he
added.
The hotel management company forayed to
Tirupati this January with a Premiere property-
Marasa Sarovar Premiere and also added Nid-
hivan Sarovar Portico, Vrindavan to its portfolio.
“Given that we already had a property in Badri-
nath (one of the Chaar Dhams) and Shirdi, we are
now covering a lot of footwork in religious des-
tinations,” said Bakaya.
Other hotels that are scheduled to open this
year include: Marigold Sarovar Portico, Mashobra
Shimla; Crystal Sarovar Premiere, Agra; Goldray
Sarovar Portico, Salem; Sarovar Portico, Gand-
hidham; Sarovar Portico, Dehradun; Sarovar Por-
tico, Trivendrum; and Hometel,
Vandalur.
Recently, the company has
launched its Hindi website be-
coming the first hotel com-
pany in India to do so. “The
idea was to reach out to a
larger audience who feels more
comfortable using Hindi rather
than any other language. The
average spend on the website
is about 4 minutes and in such
short span of time we received
close to 400,000 hits,” he in-
formed.
Talking about the most pro-
ductive brand, Bakaya men-
tioned that both- Sarovar
Premiere and Sarovar Portico have shown high
growth for the Company. “Portico allows us flex-
ibility to convert existing hotels and sleeve in our
hotels and also to grow with reasonable invest-
ment. Premiere, on the other hand is growing at
the same sort of pace but the base is small so it
will always remain more select and pricy,” he
said.
Portico will continue to grow the fastest
among all other brands, said Bakaya as that is
where the largest number of hotels of the Com-
pany is today and the largest number of hotels
will be in time to come.
Bakaya said that for the last 2-3 years, the
most challenging market for them to operate
has been Hyderabad. However, the recent devo-
lution of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana has
changed the scenario since the
last 2-3 months and things are
moving in a stable manner.
Mumbai has been the
strongest and most particular
market, followed by Delhi and
Gurgaon, he mentioned.
Commenting on the future
plans, the Executive Director
said, “We have lately decided
not to continue with our weak-
est hotels when it comes to
renew and to pick up stronger
and more distinguished prop-
erties as we go forward. So our
portfolio will be richer in terms
of profile. In our worst year
even, we open at least 6 hotels
in a year. We are optimistic to open 10 new ho-
tels every year and have at least 95 per cent re-
newal on our existing contracts.”
Due to the economic sentiment, the last few
years have been tough for the hospitality indus-
try in the country. Though Sarovar Hotels man-
aged to stabilize in this tough operating climate
by cutting down on costs and putting in lot of
energy conserving measures to optimize the sit-
uation. However, the ARR in the last 4-5 years
has reduced between 5-7 per cent annually, com-
mented Bakaya.
Bakaya believes that the real recovery will be
seen starting from October onwards as summer
is always a drop in India (excluding the hill sta-
tions) and expects the rates to grow strong by
8-12 per cent.
Wonderlust Bureau
The USA based hotel operator Preferred Hotel
Group (PHG) moved from a multi-branded busi-
ness model to one master brand, Preferred Ho-
tels & Resorts. This corporate rebrand represents
the company’s commitment to a new consumer-
focused approach that is designed to elevate
core awareness of the brand, drive strategic
growth of its portfolio, and improve market
share for its member hotels by making it easier
for travelers to identify the singular hospitality
experience that meets their needs and life and
style preferences for each occasion.
Lindsey Ueberroth, President & CEO, Pre-
ferred Hotels & Resorts, said, “Driven by evolv-
ing consumer expectations and changing travel
trends, our new brand architecture creates
stronger clarity for the Preferred Hotels & Re-
sorts brand within the marketplace and allows
us to elevate and focus attention on our world-
class collection of independent hotels and re-
sorts.”
“We are delighted to an-
nounce this important mile-
stone for Preferred Hotels &
Resorts in India. As we
commence a significant
phase in the brand’s journey
to better create outstand-
ing luxury travel experi-
ences across the world, we
are confident that our new
collections shall be wel-
comed by both our member
hotels and discerning Indian
clientele,” added Saurabh
Rai, Area Managing Direc-
tor- South Asia and Middle
East, Preferred Hotels & Re-
sorts.
All of the company’s 650
member hotels and resorts
are now represented by the
Preferred Hotels & Resorts
brand. The new brand strat-
egy is further supported by
a multi-million dollar invest-
ment in updated advertis-
ing, marketing, and public
relations campaigns that
will be introduced over the
next several months.
The Group further aims
to expand its number of
member hotels to 45 by the
end of 2018 in India, in-
formed Rai. “We are looking
forward to expand our
member hotels in India by
50 per cent by the end of
2018. Currently we are hav-
ing a diverse portfolio of 30
member hotels across sig-
nificant destinations in
India,” he said.
Ajay K Bakaya
Lindsey Ueberroth and Saurabh Rai at the
event
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