Hospitality growth story in India to remain strong: Marriott's Rajeev Menon

livemint.com:

Mint that 77% of the rooms signed in 2023 were within the luxury and premium portfolio segment, compared to the 48% in 2022. Edited excerpts: Asia Pacific had a particularly strong year across the industry. In our case, we almost broke every record that there was.

There are shifts that are playing out in Asia because almost 50% of the world's population lives here. When we think about what's going on with the economic activity in India and supply chains shifting out of China, we see the demographic advantage for countries like ours and others in the region. It's clear that the demand growth is really strong in Asia Pacific.

In the past, many countries in Asia were reliant on tourism coming in from other parts of the world. Just last year, over 60% of our business came from either domestic or intra region. So that demonstrates that the region itself is starting to become self reliant.

We crossed over ₹9,000 crore in turnover at the end of the last calendar year. This year has started strong. The company has a portfolio of 160 operating properties across 17 brands and will look to open 14 hotels this year in South Asia.

So we are definitely seeing a double-digit improvement over last year. I don't see the trend shifting dramatically now. There is obviously a little bit of normalisation from 2023 but still higher when we think about what went on in the covid years of 2020-2022.

If we are still able to drive double-digit growth, that is truly representative of the strength of the economy, the brand, our loyalty programme and so on. As more and more competition comes, we will see some level of rationalization. But India, for much of the past was under-positioned in its pricing when compared to other parts of the world.