Accor raises its India play as domestic luxury demand reshapes hotels
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Accor, the French hospitality giant, is betting big on the quiet shift in India's luxury hotel industry, where domestic travellers, not foreign tourists, are the primary engine of the high-end hospitality market.India’s luxury hotel boom still has room to run, according to the chairman of Accor India and group CEO, Ennismore, Gaurav Bhushan, who said the country is only ‘just getting started’ as affluent domestic travellers increasingly spend on high-end experiences and boutique hospitality.“The Indian luxury consumer is spending more on experiences than ever before,” Bhushan, recently appointed chairman for Accor in India, told Mint. “As long as you offer a real product and a real experience, people will spend.
I don’t think we’ve hit a glass ceiling at all.”This aligns with the broader direction of the country's hotel consumption. Last week, Mint reported that India's hotel market is now leaning heavily on domestic travellers.
According to hospitality consultancy HVS Anarock, this consumption pattern is expected to remain largely domestic-driven over the coming years.India’s inbound tourism has only marginally moved past pre-pandemic levels. Foreign tourist arrivals were at 20.57 million in 2024, around 15% above pre-covid levels, before easing to a provisional 20.09 million in 2025, down 2.4%.
Nearly half of these arrivals comprise people of Indian origin.Bhushan said Accor’s India strategy was never built around inbound tourism alone. “We were building hotels in India for the Indian traveller.
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