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Informist, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025

 

By Avishek Rakshit

 

KOLKATA – Bullish on the projected demand in the hospitality segment, ITC Hotels Ltd. is devising ways to surpass its self-laid target of having 220 properties by 2030 and is focussing on furthering its expansion in the luxury and premium hotel segment, Chairman and Non-Executive Director, Sanjiv Puri said Monday.

 

"As we stand today, we believe that this 220 (hotels by 2030) will be easily surpassed...And of course, the management is focussed on seeing how we surpass this figure," Puri said in response to a shareholder's queries at the company's second Annual General Meeting. ITC Hotels, which got demerged from its parent, ITC Ltd. on Jan. 1 held its first AGM on Monday after listing.

 

At the time of the demerger, parent company ITC had said that ITC Hotels plans to come up with over 200 properties by 2030 under a mix of owned properties and those under management contracts with various brands. After the listing of ITC Hotels and posting its first quarterly financial results in May, the company revised its target upwards setting it at 220 properties. However, Puri said that considering the trends in the hospitality sector and the company's scale up of operations, the revised target can be exceeded.

 

Earlier during the AGM, in his opening speech, Puri had said that the company is on track to surpass its target of coming up with over 200 hotels.

 

Focussed on the luxury and premium segment, which offers more margins than budget and semi-premium properties, ITC had signed 30 management and franchise contracts in 2024-25 (Apr-Mar) which accounts for a pipeline of 58 hotels with over 5,300 keys. Currently, ITC has 140 hotels across 90 locations with over 13,300 keys. All of its hotels are under the six brands all of which are positioned in the luxury and premium segment.

 

The brands--ITC Hotels and Mementos--operate in the luxury segment, the Storii brand operates hotels in the premium boutique segment, Welcomhotel in the upper upscale category, Fortune in the midscale segment, and WelcomHeritage in the heritage leisure space.

 

Puri said that ITC Hotels will continue to focus on expanding its presence to tier 2 and tier 3 cities where premiumisation in the hospitality segment is picking up. At the same time, ITC Hotels will also explore further opportunities to come up with new properties with new brands where it is already present.

 

"India is a large and diverse country, new areas are opening up and the potential of hotels is much more. We are present already in some places with some brands and there are opportunities for further brands, and in some places we aren't present yet," Puri said in his response to shareholders queries. A large section of shareholders asked Puri to throw some light on the company's plans for the next 2-3 years.

 

ITC Hotels will explore expansion opportunities in place of tourist interest, pilgrimage, cuisine, and others, Puri said.

 

According to ITC Hotels, although foreign tourist arrivals in the country are yet to reach the pre-pandemic levels, there has been a strong bounce back and around 10 million foreign tourist arrived in India in 2024 compared with 11 million in 2019--the year before the pandemic hit the world.

 

Apart from focussing on signing agreements with hotel developers and owners to launch managed properties, ITC Hotels is also progressing investments towards scaling up its portfolio of owned hotel rooms. Construction of a greenfield project at Puri and a new block at the existing Welcomhotel in Bhubaneswar are under way. Its strategic land bank at Visakhapatnam is also being leveraged to develop a 200-key greenfield project to enhance its portfolio of owned hotels.

 

At 1332 IST, shares of ITC Hotels traded 1.67% down at INR 229.50 on the National Stock Exchange. End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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