BWH Hotels eyes expansion

New Delhi: BWH Hotels, a hospitality company, which runs mid market hotel brands like Best Western Hotels & Resorts, and SureStay Hotels, is looking to expand its presence in the south Asian market. At present, the company has 27 hotels in India, globally it has 4,300 hotels. Larry Cuculic, president, and CEO of the company told that while the company has been around for about two decades here, now is a good time to expand their presence.

It has 19 brands in the world but only five of those are in India. For this, its master franchisee for the region, Delhi based Sorrel Hospitality, will focus on strengthening its presence in other regions like Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka as well and is likely to have a total of 51 hotels by the end of 2024, spanning 3,000 rooms when the pipeline becomes operational.

All these hotels have been signed in these three markets. Of this, six more hotels will be added to the India market. The company works across various formats here, including franchising as well as hotel management contracts. It has a strong presence in locations in Punjab, like Amritsar, where it has eight properties.

At present, its focus has been on the North Indian market, but the company intends to go beyond that, targeting locations on highways across India. The company signed Sorrel in 2016. At that time, it operated a similar number of 22 properties in India. “The GDP growth is spectacular in India. You also now have the world’s largest and youngest population, which is going to demand to travel, both locally and internationally and spend money.

While we don’t have a magic future pipeline number for India, we’d like to focus on quality hotels here. Our growth must be thoughtful and careful. It will take longer for us to develop hotels here, because we don’t work with institutional companies. We work more with quality hotels and operators.

We may do one project versus five the other company is doing, it’s fine," he said. The company is also open to unbranded hotel conversions. On the global front, the company came up in World War II in 1946 in the US. More recently, BWH Hotels had acquired WorldHotels in 2019, reaffirming the company’s commitment to providing higher end accommodation as well, across diverse locations.

It now collectively has 55 million members in its loyalty programme. WorldHotels has a collection of hotels and resorts in premier destinations around the world in the upper upscale and luxury segments. The growth in India, he said, will come from all tiers but may be skewed more towards tier II and III cities, because those cities will support more greenfield developments.

“Just like what we saw in North America, India is currently building its infrastructure. And we all know that where there is infrastructure and an expanding number of airports, there is growth in communities in secondary and tertiary markets, and highway systems. This will make travel much easier.

Years ago, when we developed our highway system, all of a sudden, it was the birth of Best Western," Cuculic said. Growing like the rest of the industry, it said it has an occupancy of 80 85% in the country. From an Asia perspective, the company has a strong presence in locations like Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan, which are driving business for it.

It signed 20 properties in Vietnam last year. While it doesn’t have any signings planned so far for its WorldHotels, the company does expect that India could present some opportunities with some unique properties here. Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world to know more.

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