Sudipta Dev – Mumbai
Himmat Anand, founder, Tree of Life Resorts and Hotels is launching a second brand called Amaira Hotels and Resorts, which will not be as boutique as Tree of Life, but larger properties of 50-60 rooms. “These properties will be good products in their own right, but not fitting into Tree of Life culture of being small and beautiful,” said Anand, adding that Amaira as a brand will be more flexible. Tree of Life properties will never be in cities, but in natural surroundings and ideally between 20-25 rooms, offering very differentiated experience to its guests.
“We keep getting requests from a number owners where the property does not fit into Tree of Life brand but it is a good property to manage. Right now for Amaira we are looking at Gurgaon and Lucknow, but nothing is firmed up as yet. As we go along we feel that there will be huge opportunities to put up four or five hotels of 40-45 rooms under the Amaira brand. These could also be in metros. They all will be managed properties. Some owners who have contacted us say that they have land, and ask if we can build the hotel for them and manage for them. So we are getting into that stream of business also,” mentioned Anand. Stating that from the beginning the Tree of Life concept was to stay small, Anand pointed out, “Everybody challenged me that small cannot be profitable, I think we have proven that wrong – small can be beautiful, small can be profitable also.” Tree of Life is now present in four locations – Dudhwa National Park, Jaipur, Rishikesh and Udaipur. “We are also going to go forward with owned and managed properties. Construction is starting in Varanasi for an owned property, land is being finalised in Agra for another owned property,” stated Anand.
Going forward by 2017-18 he expects about eight properties under the Tree of Life umbrella, a mix of managed and owned hotels. “We have an interesting project in Dharmashala, a colonial bungalow in 200 acres of tree plantation. That could be a Tree of Life. With these two brands we can fix properties into either or more importantly where the owners get value,” he said.
