French hospitality major Accor and InterGlobe Enterprises, which owns India’s largest airline IndiGo, on Wednesday said they were expanding their 20-year partnership to build India’s third-largest hospitality platform by 2030. InterGlobe and Accor currently run the ibis chain of hotels in India under InterGlobe Hotels, which was set up as 60:40 joint venture (JV) in 2004 between InterGlobe Enterprises and Accor Asia Pacific.
The expanded partnership will see Accor consolidating its India operations and InterGlobe transferring its hospitality assets into a new integrated entity. This entity would have the target of operating 300 hotels under Accor brands by 2030. Currently, Accor operates 71 hotels in India and has 40 more in the pipeline. Some of Accor’s brands in India include Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel, Pullman, Grand Mercure, Novotel and Mercure, besides ibis and ibis Styles.
Rahul Bhatia, group MD, InterGlobe Enterprises, said that he was delighted to strengthen his firm’s two-decade long association with Accor.
“Together with InterGlobe’s deep market insights, Accor’s world-class services, India’s dynamic growth and evolving travel landscape, we aim to redefine the hospitality experience,” Bhatia said.
The enhanced partnership will also see Accor and InterGlobe investing in budget hotel chain Treebo, becoming its largest shareholders. Treebo will sign ten new Mercure branded-hotels with various property owners under this deal. The combined portfolio will have 30,000 rooms, the companies said on Wednesday, tapping into a surge in domestic tourism and growing passengers in terms of air travel.
“This partnership marks a transformative moment for Accor and its brands in India. We are unlocking growth potential in one of the world’s most exciting travel markets,” Sebastien Bazin, chairman and CEO of Accor, said.
Accor is already an investor in Treebo. According to industry sources, Treebo raised about Rs 137 crore in 2021 in a funding round led by Accor. Tracxn’s latest cap table shows that founders Sidharth Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadamjeet Jain hold 23.10% in Treebo, funds such as Bertelsmann India Investments and Ward Ferry hold 53.74%, angel investors hold 2% and Treebo employees through Esops hold 15.77%, among others.
IndiGo and Accor also separately announced on Wednesday that they were collaborating for synergies between their respective loyalty programmes —IndiGo BluChip and Accor Live Limitless. The collaboration would see the two companies sharing reward points and launching co-branded loyalty programmes.