Indian Hotels forays into homestay segment

The Tata Group company has claimed that this is the first branded product in the homestay market in the country. The brand will operate under two sub-brands namely Ama Plantation Trails and Ama Fine Homestays.

The company announced that it has signed a management contract for nine heritage bungalows with group firm Tata Coffee in Chikmagalur and Coorg in Karnataka and intends to add two of its own bungalows under the Ama umbrella next year.

Indian Hotels has a presence across 80 locations in 12 countries and operates a total of 178 hotels, including 30 under development. The company operates under several brand names like Taj, Vivanta and Ginger among others. The company has added 3,000 rooms across London, Dubai, Makkah, Kathmandu and New Delhi to scale up its inventory. It has added 20 new hotels in this fiscal year. The company plans to open a minimum of one hotel every month in the next financial year.

The company has indicated plans to reduce its net debt to equity ratio to 1.99 over the next one and a half years from 2.33 in December 2018. The company aims to achieve an operating margin of 25 per cent by FY23 from 17 per cent in FY17.

On Wednesday, Indian Hotels was trading at Rs. 139.75 per share, up 1.71 per cent on the BSE.