Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO of Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) said the company has increased the pace of opening hotels and are aiming to open between 25 to 30 hotels this financial year (FY25). Chhatwal said they might even exceed the annual target, as there are currently 112 hotels in the pipeline. This is the verbatim transcript of the interview.
Q: Is it a busy season for you? A: Indeed, it is, and we are looking forward to the next few quarters because this is the real test. The base level is high, but our spirit is higher, and our production in terms of the number of rooms, and the number of hotels is at the highest. So, let's see what the combination does.
Q: Q1 (FY25) was 6% revenue growth and about 11% profit growth and it was hit by elections, but we were worried about Q2 as well, or at least your investors were because there was G20 a year ago, and then Q3 (FY24) was World Cup. So, when we got the early numbers for July and August from the hotel industry, it was an eye-opener. It was all double digits.
So, can you tell us how Q2 (FY25) may pan out? Is it better than you thought? A: When we did the Q1 investor call, I already said that July will be 20% higher than July of last year because there is a pent-up impact despite the G20. One, there were the wedding dates that moved from Q1 to Q2. Second, there was no more election cooling-off period.
Third, the extreme heat had left us. Fourth, a lot of business activity coupled with a lot of foreign delegations coming into.