Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), that runs the Taj Group of hotels, sees its upscale, full service Gateway brand grow through the management contract model, reaching at least 50 Gateway Hotels in the country by 2015. Currently, IHCL has 21 operational hotels under the ‘Gateway’ brand, with a room inventory of around 2,000 rooms. It has recently re-branded its Sri Lankan property, Taj Airport Garden Hotel Colombo, to The Gateway Hotel, which it said would be the only overseas property under the Gateway brand for now.

IHCL has around eight to nine greenfield ‘Gateway’ properties under various stages of development, which are expected to get operational in the next two years. These will add another 1,000 rooms to the Gateway portfolio. The first greenfield ‘Gateway’, also seen as the proto-type for the future Gateway brand properties, is expected to open this year-end in Kolkata. Moreover, the company has identified around 16-17 locations for the Gateway brand in the country.

?We see the brand growing through management contracts, going ahead. We want to take the asset-light model and are in talks with various developers and investors for the brand. We will have a standard design for the brand and would give it to the developers. We will not be part of the development but run the hotel,? said PK Mohankumar, chief operating officer, Gateway Hotels. The investment that would go into a single Gateway room, exclusive of the price of land, would be around R40 lakh.

Till now, the company had been busy re-structuring its portfolio with a large number of existing Taj Residency and Taj Garden Retreat properties brought under the Gateway brand. This year, the company would migrate one or two more existing properties to the Gateway brand.

?With this, we will be done with the re-branding exercise and post this, the properties added will all be greenfield properties that will be managed by us,? said Mohankumar. He added that the company is looking at mixed-use properties, integrated township and special economic zones for its Gateway brand. Some of the cities that will house the Gateway brand include Raipur, Chennai, Shirdi, Mumbai, Kochi and Pune. ?The growth is seen in both tier I and II cities,? he said.

Talking about its expansion plans in the Sri Lankan market, Mohankumar said the company is keen on future growth in the country and expanding to destinations where it does not have presence. IHCL has three properties in Sri Lanka ? Taj Samudra in Colombo (which it said will be going under massive refurbishment to take it to the Taj luxury brand level), Taj Airport Garden Hotel Colombo (that has been re-branded as The Gateway Hotel) and Taj Exotica in Bentota (which has been re-branded as Vivanta by Taj). An investment of $10 million (about R45 crore) has been made at the newly branded The Gateway Hotel Colombo for further expansion.

IHCL had launched the Gateway brand in 2008 as part of its re-structuring exercise that begun almost seven years back. The company feels that it was the existence of Gateway brand that helped it hold on to the guests of Taj during the economic downturn.

?One must realise that it is thanks to the Gateway that we held on to the guests of Taj who were not keen on spending high during the economic downturn but still wanted a upscale full service hospitality,? said Mohankumar. He added that despite the economic downturn and falling arrivals, Gateway brand has managed to grow at 15-17% per year. The company claims to have 70% occupancy rate across Gateway branded properties.

(Travel for the story was organised by Taj)