Indian Hotels to bring 25 properties under new marketing platform

Tata Group-owned Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), which operates the Taj Group of hotels, on Thursday announced Ekyam, a new marketing platform that will manage a portfolio of 25 hotels and 2,500 rooms by the end of 2025.

Ekyam will primarily manage properties across destinations that offer adventure experiences across the Indian Ocean, Greater Himalayan regions and wildlife escapes, and will club IHCL’s 11 existing and seven upcoming properties owned by its long-time partner Nepali diversified business conglomerate CG Group’s CG Hospitality.

These 11 properties —Taj Exotica Resort & Spa and Taj Coral Reef Resort & Spa in Maldives, Taj Samudra in Colombo, Taj Jumeirah Lakes Towers, in Dubai, and Taj Safaris, the wildlife luxury lodges in India (Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Pench and Panna) and Nepal (Chitwan and Kathmandu) – have 900 rooms in the Indian sub-continent and west Asia.

More rooms

The seven upcoming properties of this expanded partnership will include four in Nepal, two in Bhutan and one in Dubai under the platform, which will add another 900 rooms to the portfolio.

IHCL has identified seven of its existing managed properties with other developers that it plans to add to Ekyam, said MD and CEO Puneet Chhatwal. This, he said, will depend on approvals from the owners of those properties.

“This is a marketing platform, which will house our owned and managed properties with CG Hospitality and their upcoming properties. It is imagined to bring in more transparency and build on the already existing two-decade-old partnership that we have with them,” said Chhatwal.

Seven of eleven

Under two joint venture companies, IHCL and CG Hospitality own seven out of the 11 operational hotels. The remaining four are owned by CG Group, which has overall invested ₹1,250 crore in these properties so far.

“So far, we have invested ₹1,250 crore, and for the upcoming seven projects, we have earmarked another ₹1,500-2,000 crore of investment,” said Rahul Chaudhary, MD of CG Hospitality.

Incidentally, IHCL has, over the years, also invested ₹550-600 crore in the two joint ventures with CG Group, Chhatwal said.

Last year, Mint reported that Ambuja Neotia group bought the Tree of Life Resorts & Hotels in a deal pegged at ₹70-80 crore. IHCL was subsequently hired to run this portfolio for them.

IHCL reported ₹6,768.75 crore of gross revenue from operations in FY24, rising 16.5% from FY23’s ₹5,809.91 crore.