IHCL's Puneet Chhatwal on taking Indian tourism to new heights

As travellers discover a new India, hospitality players are building a new ecosystem to meet them there, the MD & CEO of IHCL writes

By Puneet Chhatwal

Published: Jun 2, 2025 04:38:16 PM IST

Updated: Jun 2, 2025 04:49:31 PM IST

India’s hospitality sector underwent structural shifts—as what had begun as a severe shock during the pandemic soon became a phase of rebalancing and reinventing. Illustration: Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur; Image: Shutterstock

As travellers discover a new India, hospitality players are building a new ecosystem to meet them there

India’s hospitality sector underwent structural shifts—as what had begun as a severe shock during the pandemic soon became a phase of rebalancing and reinventing. Demand patterns moved, as did guest expectations. In response, the operating model of hospitality and tourism also evolved.

The sector’s contraction in 2020 was sharp and without precedence. At one point, revenue in tourism-related services had dropped to zero. The recovery from that nadir has been all about reshaping the industry for resilience. Domestic market led the revival for the sector as Indians began exploring more of the country.

Travel is witnessing a permanent shift in consumer behaviour in the form of reduced booking windows, significantly higher frequency of short duration leisure trips, ‘bleisure’—merging business and vacation time—and seeking unconventional holiday experiences like petcations, staycations or slow travel. Wellness and spiritual travel, once a niche offering, has now moved mainstream.

As the industry stabilises at a new baseline, it faces the next phase: Innovation and disruption. The next decade will see India’s travel and tourism pivot led by rapid phase of infrastructure development—both greenfield and expansion of airport capacities, development of extensive road and rail networks, emergence of tier 2 and 3 cities and world-class convention centres in the country’s key metros. In response, the sector will need to increase the penetration of branded rooms supply and reimagine the hospitality offerings across India’s heterogenous market landscape.

Our Disruption Playbook

While some of these changes were accelerated by the pandemic, there were signs of change even before that, and at IHCL we had started working out of a new playbook more than five years ago. We were trying to nudge our overall business model in new directions that were margin accretive and capital light.

The big difference has been made by business models that can be grouped under ‘new businesses’. These are brands that did not exist five years back like ama Stays & Trails, Qmin and Tree of Life and the reimagined Ginger.

Ginger represents IHCL’s strategic response to capitalise on the growing opportunity in the midscale segment. Ginger is positioned as a compelling value proposition for the aspirational traveller. Ginger is positioned as a ‘lean luxe’ lifestyle brand, offering a superior experience beyond the conventional, hence its moniker—Simply Better! The brand’s transformation is inspired by the shifting consumer behaviour from functional to experiential travel, including being seen in aspirational social settings which are at the same time comfortable, convenient and affordable.

Also read: How Puneet Chhatwal has turned around the 120-year-old IHCL

Ginger’s new brand identity addresses this shift, with its vibrant and quirky public spaces design, efficient room layout with contemporary design character blended with an unconventional service design. Ginger addresses the on–the–go mindset across demographics. Its target consumer prioritises convenience, efficiency and the experience of staying in a vibrant and appealing environment.

After the successful launch of a 371-key Ginger hotel at Mumbai airport, we will launch more such large-format hotels such as Ginger Bengaluru airport with 325 rooms, a 300-room hotel at MOPA airport in Goa, besides the recently opened 280-plus-room Ginger at Candolim, Goa. In FY25, enterprise revenue of Ginger stood at ₹675 crore with a strong Ebitdar margin at 43 percent with a portfolio of 100-plus hotels, including a pipeline of 30 hotels.

The brand with its relevancy straddles all city categories and destinations from metros, state capitals, commercial centres, industrial townships, pilgrimage sites and leisure hotspots. Ginger, with its ability to penetrate wide and deep, is the growth engine for IHCL.

With ama Stays & Trails, we created a new brand around standalone bungalows anticipating the travellers’ desire for privacy in a bespoke setting, coupled with a high level of service. We were ahead of our times when we started the concept. We have scaled the brand to a portfolio of over 300 bungalows with an accelerated phase of signings of more than 100 bungalows over the past two years. The offering is constantly adapting and evolving. From starting with bungalows of Tata companies located in tea and coffee plantations to onboarding standalone second homes and greenfield ama cluster developments across leisure destinations like Kerala, Goa, Rajasthan and others. The customer segments are also evolving beyond the vacationers to hosting social events and corporate getaways. We achieved a turnover of ₹40 crore and expect to scale to ₹100 crore over the next two years.

IHCL’s culinary platform launched in 2020, Qmin, with its multi-format presence across all-day-diners in Ginger hotels, lifestyle cafés, food pods and QSR is present with over 70 outlets. The QSR format will grow through strategic alliance in locations with captive and high footfall areas, including retail spaces, commercial centres and airports. Qmin’s foray in quick commerce in collaboration with BigBasket, currently in a pilot phase in Bengaluru, will augment its offline presence.

With the rising trend of experiential travel, IHCL acquired a majority stake in the brand owning company of Tree of Life, which offers unique travel experiences in offbeat destinations like Mussoorie, Dared, Naggar, Udaipurwati, Kumaon and Binsar, among others. Located outside city centres, the resorts are a chance to immerse in nature and local culture. Tree of Life has a portfolio of 20 resorts and will scale to 100 by 2030.

New businesses, comprising Ginger, Qmin, amã Stays & Trails and Tree of Life, will rapidly scale through a capital-light route, primarily through fully-fitted operating leases for Ginger, management contracts for amã and a combination of the two for Tree of Life. Qmin in addition will explore the franchising route to expand its footprint in the QSR space. In FY25, new businesses contributed ₹600 crore to the consolidated revenue, clocking a 40 percent year-on-year growth. Under Accelerate 2030, IHCL’s five-year strategy roadmap, this vertical is set to deliver a revenue CAGR of over 30 percent.

Acceleration Ahead

IHCL has demonstrated record financial performance across five fiscal years from FY17 (excluding two years of the pandemic). This is enabled by 2.5x growth in portfolio from 155 to 381 hotels and rooms from 18,000-plus to 46,000-plus through a growth strategy of balancing capital light and capital heavy. A 2x growth in revenue to ₹8,565 crore, a more than doubling of the Ebitda margin from 16 percent to 35 percent and from a loss to a profit after tax of ₹1,603 crore has resulted in a healthy balance sheet with a net cash position of ₹2,850 crore in FY25 as against a debt of ₹3,001 crore in FY17.

IHCL’s journey of transformation was enabled by its comprehensive brand and asset management initiatives, a not-like-for-like growth predominantly through a capital-light route as well as the contribution of new businesses and air and institutional catering under Taj SATS. IHCL continues to evolve its brandscape by launching new brands and formats, addressing India’s heterogenous market with a vision to achieve scale and prominence in the segments it operates in.

Innovation is clearly the need of the hour to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving and dynamic marketplace. It’s clear: The old playbooks won’t work. Growth now comes from agility, new formats and deeper customer connection. As travellers discover a new India, we’re building the new hospitality ecosystem to meet them there—smarter, lighter and built to last.

(This story appears in the 30 May, 2025 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)