Makes A Comeback

Charmaine Fernz - Mumbai

After a gap of almost two years, Germany's SRS-WORLDHOTELS, is back in India. The international hotel marketing and representing a consortium is be represented by Mumbai-based Haiku Hospitality Services. This is the latest attempt by the company to get a foothold in the Indian market. With that in view, Alex Tan, director of sales - Asia, SRS-WORLDHOTELS was recently in Mumbai to aggressively promote the chain. "Our initial focus will be to strengthen our base in the Indian market. Of late, it has been noticed that the perception of India is changing globally. There is also a trend catching up where there is an increase in outbound travel. Besides, we have realised that India is not a price driven market but the emphasis is more on quality and value for money. So, our initial aim would be to promote our properties internationally among Indians. To that effect we are in talks with certain corporate agents but have not finalised any as yet."

Adding further Deepak Nathwani, preferred agent, SRS-WORLDHOTELS said, "What sets this attempt apart from the others, is that the consortia will invest its resources in activities such as image and network building among others. SRS is very serious on maintaining a long-term presence in India this time. It has clubbed India with China, as its next big areas of growth. We have also realised that the Indian market is very discriminative so we are using all our resources to promote the properties worldwide." SRS also aims to enlist hotels into the worldwide network. "After having witnessed a growth rate of 45 per cent from India, we would certainly like to increase that percentage. To that effect, we will be targeting stand-alone hotels which can come under our deluxe, first class and comfort collections in future within the Indian market," said Tan. He intends to approach hotels in the major metros of Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, followed by the secondary cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad. However, its first priority is to 'establish' a 1,000 agent strong network, driving outbound bookings. When asked as to how a stand-alone hotel, catering to the domestic market, can benefit from being part of an expensive international reservation network, Nathwani said the network's agents will be asked to sell the Indian hotels as well. "SRS also decided to come to India as the company was getting sizeable outbound bookings from here despite not having an established presence. SRS felt it was time to build upon that," said Nathwani. On a more futuristic note, Tan explains, "To further strengthen our presence in the Indian market, we will be conducting a road show in future, as there are a lot of our hotels who are keen to come to India and showcase their products."