‘Luxury travel has hit its peak, budget hotels are the future’

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₹24,000 a night rooms. Our focus is the remaining 90%," he said. "Dropping rates is not a good strategy for hotels, in general.

We won't be dropping any rates. We will now only do that for special events or occasions. Luxury brand Gucci dropped in value because they did not maintain their pricing range around the world.

In the minds of the consumer, buying a brand that doesn't change its rates is better than one that discounts a lot," he added. In terms of average daily rates, a metric by which a hotel room's tariff is calculated, the first half of 2024 saw a 7-8% growth over the same period last year, and also saw an occupancy increase of 2-3%. This was despite the fact that general elections and fewer auspicious wedding dates reduced travel during the period.

The company also operates brands like Howard Johnson, Hawthorn Suites, Days Hotel, Trademark Collection here and recently opened hotels in Amritsar, Udaipur, and Gorakhpur. He said that continents like Europe taking too long to issue visas or deny visas to Indians was a "stupid" decision. "Indians are the travellers of the future.

They are young, have disposable incomes and are educated. They are going to want to explore places. It doesn’t make any sense to me that countries in Europe are not issuing enough visas to Indians.

Europe has an ageing population. They should learn from countries like Georgia, Dubai and Vietnam, which are welcoming people with open arms. Which is why even we, as a hotel company, are seeing India in two ways: how we can bring more tourists to India and how we can get business from travellers that leave from India," he added.