Six Senses Hotels, Resorts and Spas, a hotel management company with seven properties in the South East Asian region is planning to setting up sales and marketing offices across India in an effort to tap the Indian market, particularly for their properties in Maldives and Thailand.

The company, whose presence in India is limited to a single marketing office in Mumbai, will be setting up shop in Delhi and Bangalore within the next six months and other metros and big cities subsequently. This information was divulged by Amit Nag, director sales and marketing (India), Six Senses.

It is for the first time that the company has appointed an all India head for sales and marketing, underlining the importance of the Indian market. Nag, a hotel management graduate from Los Angeles, has a number of years of experience in sales and marketing in the hospitality and aviation industry and his last position was as general manager, sales and marketing, Sahara Airlines.

“India is almost a virgin market for our two brands, Soneva (beyond stars boutique brand of resorts) in Maldives and Evason (five-star boutique category) in Thailand. Six Senses properties with their USP of ‘luxuriously back to nature’ are well known worldwide. My first responsibility is to create brand awareness and then tap the discerning top bracket Indian traveller, a niche segment which is definitely expanding,” stated Nag.

Both Soneva Fushi Resort and Spa, the flagship property voted as the best resort in the world by Conde Nast Traveller (2000) which commands a room rate of US$ 535 (standard room) on room only basis during peak season and Soneva Gilli Resort & Spa, an all over the water villa resort with room rate of US$ 1,050 during peak season and US$ 653 during off season are exotic and exclusive destinations. So are the two Evason properties in Hua Hin and Phuket, Thailand.

According to Nag, he plans to target leisure/personal travel, incentive and corporate market. “Till date our focus was Mumbai but now we will be concentrating on the four metros by organising roadshows, events, etc to create awareness about our brand. We also plan to have special promotional packages and are tying up with tour operators with season and off season packages to sell our properties. Plus we are also planning to conduct fam trips through the year. Word of mouth publicity has worked quite well for us since we are not just selling the property but an ‘experience’,” explained Nag.

While for Evason brand Nag just has to induce people to his property as Thailand is a popular destination with Indians, for Maldives he has to also create awareness and sell the destination. He said, “Despite the fact that it’s just a two-hour flight, Maldives, which is as stunning and beautiful as Mauritius, Seychelles or Malaysia, has not been opened up for the Indian market.”

Nag said that as far as Maldives was concerned Six Senses faced competition from the Taj property there since it is a well known Indian brand with a greater market reach. This has also been one of the factors for the company to have representation in feeder markets like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai etc.