Domestic market will help tourism, hospitality to get back on track

“we need to focus more and more on domestic business, leisure or non-leisure. If we do that, this opportunity that has come because of COVID, will make India a 12-month destination”.

— Puneet Chhatwal

PRAVASISAMWAD.COM

The Taj Group believes that focusing on domestic business will help the tourism and hospitality sector recover from the havoc caused by the pandemic. Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Puneet Chhatwal was quoted saying that “we need to focus more and more on domestic business, leisure or non-leisure. If we do that, this opportunity that has come because of COVID, will make India a 12-month destination”.

Chhatwal was speaking at 4th edition of CII Real Estate Confluence. He went on to point out that the hospitality industry had operated on 40 per cent business in H1 and 60 per cent in H2 and “I think both this 40 per cent and 60 per cent can go up significantly and narrow the gap with the focus on domestic (business),” Chhatwal said.

“All the demand that is driven today is from the domestic market both leisure and non-leisure. When it comes to growth we can expect to see some consolidation activities happening in the industry… The domestic brands will become stronger and the emphasis and the focus will be more on domestic brands.”

He also mentioned that recovery was possible if the country’s GDP grew to 8-9 per cent as it would translate into better RevPar numbers for the industry, he said. Chhatwal said the industry should compare TrevPar (total revenue per available room) instead of RevPar (revenue per available room). “The total revenue per available room is not as bad because we have events, meetings, weddings and that helps us in driving our revenue,” he added.

He said that the industry was on track and in the current scenario, demand would outpace supply and in 2-3 years it will balance out and the rates should increase. “All the demand that is driven today is from the domestic market both leisure and non-leisure. When it comes to growth we can expect to see some consolidation activities happening in the industry… The domestic brands will become stronger and the emphasis and the focus will be more on domestic brands,” he said.

************************************************************************

Readers

These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.

Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world.  We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.

Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.

In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.

For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com