StayWell India MD Excited about 2016 Plans

Bikramjit Ray May 04, 2016

BW HOTELIER spoke with Rohit Vig, Managing Director India for the StayWell Group of hotels about what the year ahead held for this relatively new entrant into the Indian market. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Tell me a little about Staywell and it's presence in India.

Staywell Hospitality Group is born and brought up in Sydney, Australia. We are a seven year old company. We have about 15 hotels in Australia that we operate, manage and also have equity interest in. From Australia we decided to move out and take over the rest of the world, like everyone wants to. The first international hotel that we opened was in Dubai, followed by Singapore, before entering China.

Tell me a little about your experience outside of Australia.

We went to Singapore, bought land in auction, spending about 100 million Singapore dollars. Built the hotel from scratch and opened the Park Regis in Clarke Quay--220 rooms. Similarly in Dubai, we leased that hotel, which has 400 rooms with seven F&B outlets, opposite Burj Juman. After that in August 2012, we incorporated the company in India. We manage about 34 assets around the world, with equity interest in 50 per cent of them. For the first six months in India, I wanted to buy my first hotel. Set up a great site in Mumbai or Delhi. We wasted about six to eight months, we decided in mid-2013 to start looking at management contracts. We opened out first hotel in August 2013, the 55-room Leisure Inn Grand Chanakya in Jaipur, on MI Road. I chose Jaipur because its the only market where you have all the international brands of hotels.

What is your strategy in India?

We concentrate a lot on F&B, because it is a key driver in India. We love our weddings. We love our conferences. Our first hotel has been extremely successful. From there, we wanted a hotel in Gurgaon. We took over an existing property from an Indian operator and rebranded Leisure Inn West Gurgaon in Sector 14, Gurgaon in January 2014. Its got 60 keys with a rooftop swimming pool and a couple of restaurants. Once this hotel was set up, we said, we've got two Leisure Inns (in the 3 star category), now we should concentrate on Park Regis (in the 4 to 5 star category), our other brand. We opened out first Park Regis in India when we took over an existing property on Amer Road being operated by Holiday Inn, refurbished extensively for six months and opened in July 2015. The owners have extensive hospitality experience as they have been running the business for 25 years. We opened the MICE market for the hotel and did a lot of weddings, something that was not happening there before.

How has the year been and what lies ahead for StayWell in India?

All my hotels across the country are doing 75 per cent occupancy. We have three operational and the next one to open is the 98 room Leisure Inn Bhaskara on Road No 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad in July 2016. The hotel has Telengana's only revolving restaurant. In August, 2016 we are opening the 96-room Park Regis Goa in Arpora, between Anjuna and Baga, on top of a hill in 5 acres of land. Our smallest room size will be 55 sq metres. We will then open the 60-room Leisure Inn Jodhpur, in November 2016--because we want to complete the Rajasthan circuit. We are opening a total of five to six hotels this year. We are also under negotiation and have signed the term sheet for two large hotels in India, already being operated, which I can share with you later. I have signed 13 hotels so far in India.

What drives you in your expansion plans here?

I'm a privately held company, I don't have any shareholders who say you must open 45 hotels. I chose my partners very carefully who have the same vision. I choose my locations very carefully where I know I will be successful. All my owners are all very happy with me. I am very interested in picking up pre-existing projects. This year is exciting because all the hard work which we have put in will see the light of day. We are going to be pretty busy this year.