Leisure hotels are much ahead of pre-COVID levels, said Puneet Chhatwal, MD & CEO, Indian Hotels, in an interview to CNBC-TV18. He shared that leisure destination rates are in fact at 120-150 percent of pre-COVID levels. Going ahead, he explained that there is strong visibility on rates as well as occupancy for the next 3 months.

He said, “The trend in February-March-April, we are not looking at visibility beyond next 100 days, is extremely positive on both occupancy and rate. However, business and corporate travel is still lagging behind where it should have been or where we would like to see it. So the international traffic will definitely assist in big metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru; all these cities will benefit as and when the air traffic opens up.”

Chhatwal mentioned that business and corporate travel, however, are still below pre-COVID levels. He is hopeful of it picking up once international travel is allowed. Elaborating on current occupancy, he highlighted that it is at 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels and the rates are much lower as well.

“We call in the industry - the Revenue per available room (RevPAR), which is a multiplicator of the average rate and occupancy. On the domestic front, it is getting close to 90 percent; this is where it was in the months of November-December (2021) then it took a very strong dip in the month of January and in February (2022); it is getting back to that level when we talk only domestic" he said.

"So leisure destinations are far ahead of pre-COVID times in both rate and occupancy. The occupancy on the corporate and typical business destinations is getting close to the pre-COVID level; the rate is lagging behind but they have become double of where it was in August-September and if they increase by another 30-40 percent, then we would cross the pre-COVID high in terms of corporate rates,” said Chhatwal.

Also Read: Hotels in India doubled revenues in Oct-Dec 2021, says JLL report

On opening new hotels, he said that the company is planning to open 18-20 hotels over the next 12 months. “We were opening a hotel a month. Now our latest guidance is that we will be opening at least 1.5 hotels a month which takes it to 18-20 openings projected for this year across all our brands,” Chhatwal said.

“I am very excited to see Taj as one of the exceptional luxury brands to hit the 100 hotels mark and in the next 10 days, we open our third hotel in Dubai, a very large one on The Palm,” he added.

Also Read: Corporate travel still below pre-COVID but retail travel bookings up 20%: Lemon Tree Hotels

For the entire interview, watch the accompanying video

First Published:Feb 23, 2022 12:45 PM IST