US-based Preferred Hotel Group plans to take the total number of hotels under its sales and marketing agreement in India from seven at present to twenty five hotels by this year end, making India its third largest market after the US and Europe.
“We plan to double and triple hotels in the Asia-Pacific region in the next three years,” said Ananya Narayan, senior vice-president, Asia-Pacific and managing director, India, Middle East and Africa, Preferred Hotel. He added that the group is looking at alliance with more brands in the country, which will include both individual hotel properties and hotel chains (both small and big).
Recently, Preferred Hotel Group signed a sales and marketing agreement with the Hotel Leelaventure Limited that runs the The Leela Palaces, Hotels & Resorts with effective from June 1, 2008. It also has sales and marketing alliance with The Bagh (Bharatpur), Leonia Holistic Resort (Hyderabad), The Imperial (New Delhi), The Metropolitan Hotel (New Delhi), Samode Palace (Jaipur) and Devi Garh (Udaipur).
Says Onno Poortier, president, Hotel Leelaventure Limited, “The US market is the largest source market for The Leela and this alliance will strengthen our brand positioning, awareness and market penetration.”
Currently, The Leela Group gets around 40% of its business from the US.