Berggruen Hotels, a venture backed by New York-headquartered private equity fund Berggruen Holdings Inc, plans to go the asset light way. The company has chalked out a plan to at least have 15 managed properties under its umbrella by 2016 from just two. This move is expected to more than double its revenues from an estimated Rs 55 crore this fiscal to Rs 215 crore by 2010 through its owned 15 assets and managed hotels. The company runs ?Keys? brand hotels in the country.
Berggruen Keys managing director and chief executive officer Sanjay Sethi said, ?In addition to the development of the 15 assets, Berggruen Hotels has embarked on an asset light model of managing hotels in the three and four star category for owners across India. We expect to leverage our strong domain knowledge, distribution channels, reservation systems and our employee talent pool to create and develop value for owners that entrust their hotels in our hands.?
Overall, room inventory of the company in operation stands at 495. Under the owned properties, Berggruen has hotel properties in Trivandrum, Ludhiana and Bangalore. During this year, Berggruen will be adding four Keys properties at Bangalore, Chennai and Mahabaleshwar. Besides these, other sites where development activity is under way include Cochin, Vishakhapatnam, Pune, Aurangabad, Goa, Lucknow, Jammu, Baroda, Kovalam and Raipur.
Berggruen Hotels had entered India with its Key brand in January 2007. The first Keys hotel greenfield project was launched in Thiruvananthapuram in August 2009. The greenfield hotels are currently operational in Ludhiana and Bangalore too. Besides, these three hotels, Keys operates a resort near Mumbai in Khandala called Dukes Retreat, a Keys Resort and a hotel near the international airport in Mumbai called Keys Hotel Nestor.