India's Hotel Pipeline Outpacing Other Asia/Pacific Countries
India's hotel construction pipeline is holding up better than that of the overall Asia/Pacific region, and two major multibrand hotel companies this week announced and confirmed upcoming property openings in the country.
Lodging Econometrics' most recent construction pipeline report, released earlier this month, showed that the number of projects in the construction pipeline had decreased by 5 percent to 446 from the second to the third quarter of 2008, and the number of rooms was down 3 percent to 73,793. This was a much more modest increase, however, than the 11 percent drop in projects and 8 percent drop in rooms seen by the Asia/Pacific region as a whole.
The largest concentration of the new hotel rooms in the pipeline is Bangalore, where about 13 percent of the rooms are set to open. Hyderabad is close behind, accounting for about 10 percent of the rooms in the pipeline.
Marriott International this week announced that it would be opening seven hotels, a total of 1,561 rooms, in India this year, more than doubling its current portfolio of six properties in the country. The properties include a JW Marriott in Bangalore, a Marriott Hotel & Convention Center in Pune and Courtyard by Marriott properties in Gurgaon, West Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and near Mumbai International Airport. Marriott also has several other India properties in development to open through 2012.
"Since our global sales office opened in India a little more than five years ago, total room night sales have increased over 500 percent, and all our existing hotels in the country are performing to expectation," Marriott president and managing director of international lodging Ed Fuller said in a statement.
Hilton Hotels Corp. also announced this week a development deal that will bring its Doubletree brand to India for the first time. Under the terms of a long-term management agreement with property developer JMD Ltd., the company will open a 182-room Doubletree in Gurgaon in 2010.