Sayaji Group of Hotels has signed seven new properties pan India with 476 new keys added to the current group portfolio. The new cities targeted by the hospitality chain are Morbi, Vizag, Bhuj, Dehradun, Udaipur, Jamnagar and Nasik. In the new financial year 2021-22, the company is further looking to add 1000 more keys. Currently, the group is concentrating on increasing its presence pan India with no near-future plans for expansion overseas.
“Quarter 3 of FY2020 helped us in recovering our past 6 months’ losses and in terms of EBITA, we’ve reached the profitable situation in terms of YTD-Dec onwards. Major recovery started from the month of November with an amalgamation of corporate, DFIT, social and wedding movements that helped us boost our revenue together,” Jameel Sayed, Director of Business Development, Sayaji Hotels.
Sayed informed that the group’s business operates on 65% return guests. While all the hotel properties of Sayaji have shown different patterns of profitability, Indore overall seems to be the leading market for the group with three hotels in one city under brand names Sayaji, Effotel, and Enrise and one convention center, Amber Gardens.
“Location is the first criteria for choosing the hotel. It has to be an amalgamation of corporate movement coming from all over INDIA and international tourists coming in for work or pleasure. Post that we concentrate on the potential for surrounding industrial centres such as automobile, pharmaceuticals, steel or financial movements from banking, insurance, and other sectors and a very heavy dependency on weddings, socials and banqueting business also. transit movements also are an adding factor to choose a location. Additionally, city population, NRI movement in the city are adding factors to choose a location,” Sayed added.
“By roping in a brand it reduces their cost of investment in building a unit along with technical expertise taken by the chosen brand and helps in smooth functions of the hotel once completed by increasing revenue and efficiency which gives higher EBITA to the asset owner against a small percentage mutually decided with the brand they choose. So it’s a win-win situation for the owner as his cost of investment reduces and he gets the operational expertise from the brand that chosen meanwhile grows its footprint pan India by going asset-light,” he said.
