Latest Franchise News India,Franchise In India,Marriott launches 1st non-franchise hotel in India,It already has seven brands and 31 operational hotels in India but global hospitality chain Marriott is hungry for more -52 more, to be precise. CNBC-TV18’s Poornima Murali and Arundathi Ramanan report that Marriott is basing all this activity on confidence that India will soon become its leading growth market.

Marriott Hotels and Resorts, JW Marriott, Renaissance, Courtyard, Ritz Carlton — these are the brands Marriott international wants to build on in India but most of all, it wants to build on its Fairfield brand.

So even though it has 52 new hotels in the pipeline for the Indian market, Marriott international has done something it’s never done before — dropped the franchise model to invest directly in a hotel property. Along with joint venture partner Samhi Hotels, Marriott has launched its first-ever integrated property in Bengaluru‘s IT hub of Outer Ring Road. The 366-room property has been built at a total investment of over Rs 300 crore, and will house the Courtyard and Fairfield brands.

Says Craig S Smith, MD & President – APAC, Marriott International, “We normally manage the franchise in Asia. But in this case, we used our balance sheet to grow because one we want to kickstart the Fairfield brand in India. We probably will continue investing in Fairfield. We don’t need to invest on other brands. The reason is we have more than we can take care.”

Marriott, which holds a 33 percent stake in the joint venture, says it is keen on building on the double-digit growth it clocked in India last year. This will be driven by its select-service lodging segment which has brands like Fairfield and Courtyard, and the lifestyle segment which has brands like AC Hotels. ‘AC Hotel is also nice like Courtyard, it is more like an urban hotel and is also very trendy and different so I think we will bring that to India,” Smith says. “People are becoming more bullish about the India market. Today we have 31 hotels. There is no reason we should not have 1000 hotels in 20 years.”

Interestingly, while India makes up just 1 percent of Marriott‘s total revenues, it still beats China, making it a preferred investment destination for the global giant. “In our case, India grew almost twice year-on-year as China in our results,” Smith says. “As a part of that, we have lot more supply for China. So same market, have seen huge supply growth. Supply growth has grown but not as fast as India. We are sort of seeing pick up now.”



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