Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and welcome to the Indian Hotels Company Limited Earnings Conference Call for the quarter ended 30th June 2024. On the call, we have with us Mr. Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and CEO, IHCL, and Mr. Ankur Dalwani, EVP and CFO, IHCL. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand this conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our global conference call for Q1 2024/2025. We remain focused on delivering superior performance on the back of our strong brand equity and continued industry leadership. Let me take you through what I feel are the top 10 remarks that we want to make in this call. Number one, Taj was rated World's Strongest Hotel Brand and India's Strongest Brand, and we are very delighted to inform you that this has been done by Brand Finance, and this is the third time in the last 4 years Taj has been rated as World's Strongest Hotel Brand and the fourth time as India's Strongest Brand across all sectors. Therefore, Taj has truly positioned itself as the crown jewel of India and is also running the flag high for Indian hospitality on the global stage.
We are extremely grateful to our loyal patrons and dedicated colleagues who have played an integral role in making Taj the epitome of hospitality and luxury. With that, I move on to the second important point. This is the ninth consecutive quarter of record performance. The third Q1 in a row, which is our best Q1, and that this performance has continued for us, pleases us to announce this to you. Our enterprise revenue crossed the milestone of INR 3,000 crore in Q1, growing 7% year-on-year. Our consolidated revenue grew 5% year-on-year to INR 1,596 crore. EBITDA grew 8% year-on-year to INR 496 crore, yielding EBITDA margin expansion of 70 basis points to 31%. More importantly, our bottom line, that is our PAT, grew by 12% to INR 248 crore.
Our operating revenue and EBITDA showcased stronger growth at 6% and 10% respectively, resulting in 100 basis points margin expansion over the last year. On a standalone basis, we continue to deliver strong performance with revenues growing 4% year-on-year to INR 972 crore, and EBITDA margin expanding by 160 basis points to 37.8%. Our standalone PAT margin stood at a healthy 21.5%. Number three, IHCL outperformed the industry despite temporary headwinds. The Indian hospitality sector faced multiple headwinds in Q1, ranging from an election period with the resulting code of conduct, to extreme heat wave, to fewer wedding dates as per the dates, the way they have fallen this year.
However, IHCL's strong brand equity, customer trust, and focus on performance helped us to be resilient and outperform the industry in all key markets, driving a RevPAR premium well above the industry average in the domestic market. Number four, which is very much related to the point number three, the structural tailwinds are intact. That's the most important factor, is that we believe that these headwinds were temporary and the long-term structural tailwinds for the sector are still intact. India continues to showcase strong GDP growth, which when combined with a favorable demographic dividend, is driving higher disposable incomes and increasing affinity for travel. The government's continued focus on infrastructure with the Noida and Navi Mumbai airports expected to open next year, and the new convention centers like the Bharat Mandapam, should boost MICE business going forward.
With 12 more auspicious dates in July 2024 to March 2025 compared to same period last year, Indian weddings are expected to stage a strong comeback. The demand-supply mismatch is expected to continue in the coming years, not just in the coming quarters, but in the coming years, with industry experts expecting a 10% growth in demand versus a muted 6% growth in supply. Number five, which is very important for us, is our portfolio growth. We continue to demonstrate industry-leading growth with 16 hotels signed and six hotels opened in Q1 2024, 2025. More importantly, with 224 hotels operational and more than 100 hotels in our pipeline, we have crossed the milestone of 325+ hotels portfolio. We are pleased to announce our entry into the new segment of Taj Branded Residences, with the first one coming soon in Chennai.
This is a very lucrative market segment in India, with over INR 22,000 crore of aggregate market value today and showcasing double-digit growth year-on-year. This helps IHCL further diversify our revenue streams and leverage the strong brand equity of Taj. Number six, an interesting development which we have been guiding that is on our new brands and reimagined businesses. IHCL's new businesses comprised of Ginger, Qmin, and amã Stays & Trails , continue to showcase strong growth at 37% year-on-year. Ginger grew 45% year-on-year, enabled by the stellar performance of the flagship Ginger Mumbai Airport Hotel, as well as a strong growth in food and beverage revenues, driven by Qminization of Ginger hotels. Most of you would recall, we took a strategic decision that the all-day dining restaurants of all Ginger hotels will be rebranded to Qmin.
The reimagined brands of Taj SATS and Chambers also showcase strong double-digit growth. Taj SATS continues to maintain market leadership with a meal share of 59%, retaining an EBITDA margin of 24%. This 24% in the sector that that Taj SATS is operating in, is considered an industry-leading margin globally. IHCL will also introduce, as we mentioned in the last call, the reimagined Gateway in Q2 of this year. Gateway will be a full-service hotel offering in the upscale and maybe even up, in some cases, up to upper upscale segment. The brand rollout will commence with a portfolio of 15 hotels and we aim to scale it to 100 hotels by 2030. Number seven, the very important factor for us, the management fee growth through capital-light strategy.
As we have been communicating for last five plus years, we have had a change in our business model, and we've tried to position ourselves in a more balanced manner of capital-heavy and capital-light portfolio. Our capital light, not like for like growth, has helped us grow our management fees by 17% from INR 98 crore last year to INR 114 crore in Q1 2024/2025. We expect this growth in management fees to sustain with higher flow-throughs to the EBITDA. Number eight is looking ahead to the remaining year. The industry has bounced back in July from the temporary headwinds faced in Q1. Destinations like Goa, Rajasthan, Kerala, which were impacted by heatwave, are now seeing growth backed by pent-up demand, and key markets like Mumbai and Delhi are benefiting from resumption of economic and MICE activity.
We expect double-digit growth in FY 2024/2025, as we have also guided previously, and with an expected 20% revenue growth, 20%+, I would say, revenue growth in July based on business on the books as on July 17. Overall, we remain confident to be able to deliver on our guidance for the full financial year, backed by IHCL's diversified and not like-for-like revenue growth and the tailwinds for the industry. We should not forget we still have another 19 hotels to open, which will add further to not like-for-like growth, with the six that we have opened in Q1. Actually, we did open one hotel a few days ago in Patna, the Taj in Patna. So that makes it seven hotels already opened, with 18 more to go, till March 31.
Number nine is our focus on digital initiatives and brand and revenue-enhancing CapEx. We launched our new tajhotels.com website, which has been well received and helped drive 150 basis points higher contribution from the website in Q1 this year compared to the same time last year. We continue to benefit from the Tata Neu loyalty program, with 5.5 million members today. 37% of our enterprise-level revenue was generated by loyalty customers in quarter one. Our balance sheet continues to be healthy, that's the point number 10. On our balance sheet is healthy. Our free cash flows have tripled in Q1 at INR 146 crores when compared with INR 47 crores last year.
Our gross cash reserves stand at close to INR 2,100 crores, enabling us to reinvest in brand and revenue-enhancing CapEx through upgradation, expansions, as well as investment in new greenfield projects. Some of the hotels with renovations were ongoing, were St. James in London, President in Mumbai, Taj Holiday Village in Goa, and Jai Mahal Palace in Jaipur. We are about to finish the renovation in our subsidiary, that is the Taj Malabar in Cochin, which is an absolutely brand-enhancing property for us in that part of India.
While this all refreshes our properties in the long run, in short run, we did face temporary revenue displacements, but that's a trend which will continue because investing continuously in an iconic brand, especially the Taj, which is our major today, as the—as, as a major source of revenue as well as income, is absolutely critical. Spends on IT and digital initiatives, like the implementation of new ERP system and property management system, continued during the quarter. We continue to evaluate several inorganic opportunities, but we'll take disciplined view about such opportunities, coupled with prudent action. Finally, Paathya, that's our ESG Plus program. We continue to stay focused on achieving our stated goals under the ESG + program, Paathya. IHCL now uses 37% energy from renewable sources and has installed 343.
EV charging stations across 142 locations in India. Continuing our journey of eliminating single-use plastic, IHCL has installed 46 bottling plants and achieved 42% recycling of water used in Q1. IHCL also partners and operates 35 skill centers today across 15 states in India, and the last one opened a few days ago in Bhubaneswar. Key corporate actions and closing remarks, one is on Taj SATS. The board of IHCL has approved certain changes to the shareholders' agreement of Taj SATS Limited, which allow IHCL to consolidate Taj SATS as a subsidiary in its consolidated accounts. The consolidation is expected to be effective on first August 2024. This will further diversify IHCL's consolidated revenues and EBITDA. Second, on simplification, in order to simplify our operating model and holding structure, it is proposed to combine business of TIHL with St.
James' Court Hotel, London, through a share swap and simultaneous business transfer agreement. The transaction is expected to complete in Q2-Q3 post-closing formalities. In summary, we expect to deliver double-digit top line growth with sustained margins and continued portfolio growth, with a target to open 25 hotels in FY 2025. Our new businesses will continue to grow at over 30% over the coming years. Our focus also remains on evolving our brandscape and strengthening our competitive advantages with prudent capital allocation and strategic opportunities. Thank you so much for your attention, and we now open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Hi, Puneet. Can you talk about Taj Branded Residence more? What are our plans, and how are we going to do more launch in more space?
Yes, Sumant, the Taj Branded Residences is 123 residences with another 225 + hotels, over 20 or 235 rooms. I said hotels. With on over 23 floors, a very iconic building and structure in Chennai. I think the good thing is we have not. We've done long stay with Taj Wellington Mews, but we have not done the branded residences concept. Basically, we get a brand fee because the Taj name is used in the sale of the flats, and as well as we'll be providing service to the apartment owners when the property is up and running. That means they could use our gym, they could use our pool, they could use our restaurants, and we would provide also housekeeping services, which will be common to all.
So I think, in a nutshell, this is our first venture in this kind of market space. And we will evaluate more opportunities because this is a global trend. It's been something very common in the Western hemisphere for over two, three decades. But I think it's slowly gaining also traction and importance on the Indian subcontinent.
Okay. Can you talk about you are talking about July recovery in the business. So can you talk about how the ARR is going to grow in the month of July or August, considering the pent-up demand you are talking about in some markets? Because the market was because of heatwave and due to general election. So have you seen some pent-up demand? Can you talk about that, and how is the ARR growth?
As I said, Sumant, that the trend till the 17th of July, I would have said 18th, but there was some disturbance, as you know, in the technology today.
Global.
Globally, not just for us or our company. So till 17th of July, what we have seen is north of, it would be fair to say, north of 23%-24% increase in the top line. But assuming that there were certain special events, like in Mumbai, even if we were to normalize that for the remaining two weeks, it would be fair to say that a 20% growth in top line is very, very visible. Now, almost similar amount is coming through rooms, and a similar amount is coming through food and beverage. In the rooms part, obviously it is driven more by rates, so that we can expect this to be. In my opinion, I think this will be a historic July.
So do you think it is going to sustain in August? Because there is a pent-up demand in July, the double-digit growth.
Every day is not a Sunday. I think what it does is it helps you start the quarter on a very good note, and we've got a very good opening. August is also trending well. September is usually a good month. So I see personally what I mentioned in my opening remarks. Me and my colleagues, we have debated and discussed and researched it at length at our discussions and in detail, and we see no reason why we should not have a double digit growth for this financial year without accounting for Taj, as of August. If we add that, it would be a much bigger number.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, sir. My first question is on the performance of [inaudible]. So is this like in the kind of macro events happen, so because your occupancy not-
Prateek, you are not clearly audible. Prateek, you are breaking up.
Hello. Hello, sorry. Is it audible now?
Yeah, yeah, perfect. Perfect.
Yeah. Sorry. So I was asking regarding, because your occupancy seems to be, like, flattish, maybe slightly better year-on-year. So in such kind of environment, like what we saw for various macro factors, the business was impacted. So industry has to like sort of induce customers to come on board by not taking a growth and still want to maintain the balance on occupancy. So how do we think about managing occupancy versus pricing in such kind of like sort of slow environment what we saw in Q1?
Prateek, I have a different opinion on this. I think what we have uploaded, you will see that we have occupancy averaging around 76% on the domestic front. In certain markets, it is in the 80s, like Goa, Mumbai, Delhi. In certain it is very close to 80, like Bengaluru and, you know, Kolkata. In Chennai, it's between 75-78%. And it's places which are seasonal, like Rajasthan, you don't expect very high occupancy. Let's say Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, you know, these, they tend to get very hot in the summer months. And you'll see much higher occupancy in Rajasthan in between October and March, right?
So it is not flattish, it is holding on being resilient at a very high level, is what I would say, because wherever this sector, like, you know, if you look back three, four, five years ago, it was struggling to be even in mid-60s in occupancy. So going above that number is, and maintaining that number is good. I think more important is how are we able to increase rates in markets which are lagging behind? That is the key. And there, some of the markets, you know, like, let's say, because of less MICE activity, because of elections, some of the markets suffered on that front.
But as I said earlier, a few times, the first 17 days of July are showing a very strong recovery, and our business on the books for the next six weeks is showing very, very strong demand versus the same period last year.
Right. So my question was actually, I understand that our occupancies are very strong, so ideally on strong occupancy, we should be able to take a good rate hike also. But, but my question was that to, in order to at least have that kind of occupancy which we had last year, like hoteliers, management would have to like sort of induce the customers by not having so high rates, and that's why the RevPAR gets impacted this quarter. And next quarter, maybe the occupancy automatically is improving, and that's why the rates also, I mean, no inducement at least is required from the hotel manager side.
Let us take this offline because I'm not able to follow. Really, when your occupancy reaches 75%+, your ability to charge becomes higher.
Okay.
That is why the rates are where they are and have improved. In the short term headwinds that we had, because of less MICE, because of less weddings, there was a certain impact, but those wedding dates moved to July. So that's why we are having extraordinary July. So a year has 365 days, and we are only in the fourth month, and you start seeing that these changes start leveling out. So I think it'll be. It will be a strong recovery in July, so that you will see both the rate and occupancy improving by a significant level.
Yeah, and Prateek, if you look at the data we've put out here, if you look at, you know, slide 23, it actually gives the response by segment, by brand. And within that, we actually made the statement that if you were to adjust it for MICE, which is what, you know, we were just referring to, that's the segment which was weak in this quarter as expected, we were actually on a very healthy double-digit RevPAR growth on the overall domestic, on the overall domestic, in the sector segment, as to particularly for Taj and particularly for the Taj city hotels, the business hotels, which is where the bulk of the domestic revenues also come from.
Right. Okay. So that makes sense, sir. My second question is on like expected new capacity additions. So we have like in the past year like heard or read about like lot of international players wanting to scale up their presence in India, obviously including domestic players. Is this something different versus what we saw in terms of wanting to go in India because India is an attractive market versus what we saw in previous cycle, which was followed by very high capacity growth? Or is it something new which we are witnessing this time?
So we are getting definitely a lot of announcements, Prateek, and I think the proof of the pudding is in eating it. If you see the actual addition on the ground, they still seem to be muted. Q1 is of course just one quarter, but if you look at quarter one, the increase in sort of the supply stock is about 1.4%. And if you look at the big markets, it's even lower than that. So I think it's good to see announcements, but I think until they get them to fructify as to operating hotels on the ground, you know, for all the challenges which we've talked in the past, it's not an easy thing.
I think supply catching up with demand is not a very imminent thing, which is the same thing to be happening in the next two to three years.
There is another answer to this would be just forget hotels. I don't think there is any sector where any global major is not focusing on India as a market.
Correct.
For a variety of reasons that we read, whether it's GDP growth or it's stability, or it's the rest of the world is lagging behind or maybe a slowdown elsewhere. I think there is a lot of focus. The way we have to look at it is a bit more with a science and an art. If there are going to be 100 new airports that come up, as an example, or let's say 50 new airports, then they will also get some hotel supply. Then, if there is going to be a renaissance of train stations, there's going to be such a growth in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. When people announce the hotels, we have to see the pipeline. Is it coming in the existing top 10 markets, or is it coming in 10 new markets?
And then once you adjust that pipeline, the supply growth in established and good markets, which are very important for publicly listed company like us, is pretty much-
Muted.
Muted is the right word. Does that help also?
Yes, absolutely, sir. This is my question. Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Shaleen from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Hi, everyone. Hi, Puneet. Hi, Ankur. Hi to the rest of the team. So, might be a little long question, sorry about that. So given, Puneet, your July comment, it seems like it's most likely more of a blip, the 1 Q. Can I get some sense on, ARR growth also? You gave us some sense on the revenue growth, but can we get some sense on ARR growth? That's first part. Should I continue with the second one?
Yeah, continue your question, Shaleen.
Yeah. So, now, typically, 2Q is the weakest seasonally. The way you guys have started, probably 2Q might be better than 1Q this time. I need to—I would like to understand, how should I think about the cost also? Because some of the costs, like, I think, you know, hikes are also taken for you in 2Q. But, if you guys are doing, you know, if you will have such a strong 2Q coming in, we should expect much stronger margin then, right? Is that the right understanding?
On your assessment, Shaleen, on Q2, basically, you have answered it what I would have answered. So you have answered for me. So Q2 will be stronger than Q1. Maybe it's the best ever Q2 that the sector would have seen. At least July and parts of August, we can already see because-
Yeah.
Half of July is behind us.
Yeah.
The other half, we have pretty much, the security. So we know that. Then if you obviously have this driven very strongly by at least even at 50% is driven by rooms, and a lot of it is driven by weddings, which also have good margins.
Mm-hmm.
Then your margin should be better in July. Now, where it would be in one month from now or in September, it's a bit too early to say, but with whatever we know today, Q2 should come out stronger than Q1, at least for the first time since I have been giving this statement or at the same level as Q1 has been. Because there is always, you know, the way it works is Q3 is the best quarter, Q4 is the second best, Q1 the third, and Q2 has lagged behind, right?
Mm-hmm.
But this time it could be a very close finish if or maybe even Q2 could be higher than Q1. It all depends in the next 10, 15 days on the pickup.
Right. Right. So, thanks, thanks, Puneet, for that. Just an addition, you know, when, when we'll be thinking about Q2 cost, right? In past two years, there was some element of catch-up, you know, because we have not spent on probably some, some part of repair and maintenance, some part of marketing. There was a catch-up happened in past, two years on a Q2 or on the salary levels, et cetera, right? So we saw certain amount of growth year-on-year. Is assumption, is my assumption right here, that we will not see similar kind of growth in the cost item this time? Because it's mostly inflation driven rather than some, catch-up driven. Is, is that the right assumption?
I think, yeah, I think on the cost side, as you've seen on Q1, we've actually managed costs quite tightly, and-
Yes.
that comes through, through the operating EBITDA margin as well.
Correct.
I think as we progress in the quarter, I think a few things will come back. As business comes back, we will see some correction or increase in the payroll costs. Also our payroll cycle will get impacted. But the overall numbers you see right now in Q1 was 29.7%. For the year, we normally do 26.5%-27%. I think we'll be in the same sort of zone for payroll. Similarly, for some of the other big items like, you know, raw material costs, we are in the. Yeah, this quarter was low because we had low banqueting. So because of the business not being there on the banqueting side, we benefited. I think this will kind of normalize.
So I think on the cost side, there would be a few efficiency drivers which we're going to sort of deploy. But it's not that, you know, it's going to be dramatically lower than the last year in terms of percentage of revenue. There will be some areas where we can benefit, and that's something which we are actually very actively working on right now. But I can talk about that more with more detail maybe in the next quarter.
Done, sir. Done, done. So the last bit, so Puneet's comment on 50% of revenue coming from rooms, given the occupancy are more, most of, mostly the same. So ARR growth is like close to double-digit for July? Is that fair assumption again?
For July, let me just check with my colleagues.
Why don't we come back to you on that?
We can come back to you, but, Shaleen, it's a good, healthy growth versus July of last year.
Yeah. We-
It cannot all come through occupancy because occupancies are so high.
Correct.
Right? So when we get our revenue and pick up, I have the absolute numbers in my mind, but not ARR for every city and every district.
No worries, sir. No worries. This is, this is enough. This is helpful. Great, sir. Great. Thank you so much. That's it from my side.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks, everyone. So my first question is about your guidance in terms of you guiding 10% increase in revenue despite the fact that in the middle of the year, you will start consolidating Taj SATS. So I mean, you know, it would be helpful if you could please give us a bit of a color as in, you know, how you think... I mean, what is it that is making 10% growth look quite significantly low, but, you know, and especially during the Taj SATS will be-
No, no, Achal, Achal, sorry to interrupt. This 10% is without Taj SATS. I said that in my opening remarks.
Yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry.
The guidance that we have given for the full year of a double-digit growth could be 10, could be 11, could be 12, but definitely north of 10. That does not include the consolidated figures of Taj SATS from August to March.
Right. I'm so sorry. Apologies, my bad.
Yeah.
And then, I mean, I know it's difficult, but is it possible for you to give a bit of a color when you say 10% growth? I mean, you must have taken some assumptions, of course, which you have your own calculations, but what is it that is going to come from the rooms addition? What is going to come from the Qminization or Ginger, whatever it is? And then, you know, what is it that you're expecting to come from higher occupancy and ARR? So, I mean, a bit of a color or a bit of a breakup of that 10% would really helpful if you can, please.
See, what we said, and you will see a bit of it on the presentation, is the new businesses and the reimagined businesses. The new businesses will continue to grow north of 30%-35%. That's what we've guided. That's Ginger, amã, Qmin, with, with very high EBITDA margins. And, the reimagined businesses, which is TajSATS and Chambers, will continue their journey also of, you know, 15%-20% growth. Anybody's guess where it would be, but with very high flow through. So that is one important new component that is coming in, and the rest comes in from our traditional business, that is, Taj, Vivanta, SeleQtions, and the reimagined Gateway that will be launched.
Okay.
Not to forget, not to forget, Achal, and you followed us for now since we announced Aspiration 2022, that our management fee income will also keep growing at a, you know, CAGR of almost 15%.
Right.
So, same other levers would include revenues from Chambers, et cetera. You know, it's also grown nicely in this quarter.
Sure. Sure. No, that's, that's helpful. My second question is about the trends, Puneet. So basically, you know, recently I've been talking to some of the hotels and then some of the OTAs. It looks like, you know, while the gap between the weekend and the weekdays was squeezed when, you know, people are working from home and they started clubbing work with leisure and all. But now, of course, things are changing rapidly and looks like now the gap has again increased, you know, with the weekdays are probably, you know, less occupied than the weekends. And then while people are still spending, and they try to find any opportunity for the long weekend, and they go and stay, I mean, you know.
How do you see the trend at Taj, maybe different, maybe within the Taj or different segments? And, and do you see that having a bit of impact? Because if there is a, if the gap squeezes, then of course the weekends would be probably more lighter. How do you see the trend and, you know, and with different Taj segments, and then probably, how do you see the impact on the business?
I think it's fair to say that so much of work from home is, you know, becoming like a thing of the past. It's not happening the way it used to. So people could be working out of Goa from the hotels. So I don't see that as a big issue. Important is that some of our trophy assets on the key markets like Mumbai, Delhi, et cetera, as I mentioned while answering you know, the question that was raised earlier by your colleague from Jefferies. Most of those key markets are performing at a very high occupancy level. So it doesn't matter whether the occupancy is coming on a weekend or a weekday, your ability to charge goes up if you are operating at north of 75% occupancy.
So I think there, the sector has demonstrated resilience definitely for us. But I hope your comment about everything going back to what it was holds true, because that would mean significant increase in foreign tourist arrivals, because outbound from India has started. But the foreign tourist arrivals, the real foreign tourists, I'm not talking about the NRIs, is still lagging behind. And that is an important segment for our palaces and, you know, our iconic assets. So we are hoping that that will start becoming more normal as of October or November of this year. But up till now, we have seen more of that in terms of business travel.
I can tell you that there are a lot of queries for delegations, you know, from heads of state, et cetera, planning to visit in the second half of this year, that we're getting in our hotels.
Yeah, I mean, and also with the kind of occupancy which we just talked about, that would mean that even the weekends are not, like, they have a reasonably healthy occupancy. So I think whether these are because of our hotels, where they're located, the way they are positioned, they are almost like urban resorts, especially the ones in Bombay and Bangalore and Delhi.
Right. Right. Thanks, Ankur. That's interesting. And my final question is about the different markets. I mean, especially I think, I was reading some of the reports which says that the rentals in Bangalore has started falling off, and, you know, I think, of course, home rentals. So, so do you see any kind of changes? I mean, of course, IT corridor is quite important. But do you see any changes in, in particular in Bangalore market, but in any other market, in, in terms of, you know, how the business are doing, and then, and now, is there any change, or, or you see there's no change? I mean, probably, you know, the reports are more about the, the home rental, and that has no impact on the, on the hotel.
So how do you see in terms of if you talk about in some of the key markets for you?
No, I think if you look at the data which we have on the slide 37, it shows you RevPAR by cities, and Bengaluru in particular has actually been one of the stronger cities, grown by 10% RevPAR, which has really been on the back of, you know, higher ER, et cetera. So I think, you know, every real estate market will have their own dynamics. Residential in Bengaluru had gone through a different status, and I think all that is correcting. But I think in general, the GCC has remained strong, and therefore, which is actually the key driver for our demand for our hotels, and of course, the general business activity, which is kind of doing fine. So except for the blip we had or slowdown we had in the month of May and June.
I think there's no such structural trend we are seeing as far as RevPARs are correcting, et cetera, especially for the big cities where we operate in.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumit Kumar from JM Financial Institutional Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. My question is on the portfolio pipeline. If you look at, you know, FY 2026 and 2027 combined, particularly for Taj, in the managed hotels segment, you have roughly around 2,800-2,900 rooms coming through. So, you know, there are three parts to this. One is, are you sort of, you know, under-guiding on the fee growth? Because it looks like almost 30% being added in the Taj portfolio alone. Second is, what is the distribution of these hotels? Do you think this substantial pipeline will affect or cannibalize the existing business? And what is the status of this pipeline? Are they all on track to come by the, you know, timelines?
We are, you know, we have been guiding very carefully on the pipeline, and that's why we are so close to year-on-year in terms of what we said we will open. So what we said, we opened last year also. We said we'll open 20, we opened 20 hotels. This year we said we'll open 25. We remain confident that we will open 25 hotels. Now, so the pipeline is pretty much managed, controlled, and extremely tracked and extremely accurate. Now comes your question on cannibalization. There's no cannibalization. Suppose we opened last year, the Taj The Trees in Mumbai, in Vikhroli.
And Ginger.
And we opened Ginger in Santacruz Airport. I don't think it cannibalized the Taj Santacruz, or it cannibalized the Ginger Andheri, Mahakali or Teli Gali, or Ginger in Gurgaon. These are all different markets within a large metro. But we are also entering new markets, like, as I said, we opened two days ago, a Taj in Patna. It's a capital of Bihar. And in every state capital, we want to have a Taj. We are missing only a few, with the exception of maybe Northeast. Maybe that market is not different, yet ready for Taj; it's more for a Gateway or a Vivanta. So I don't think there is cannibalization of that part.
The other thing, what you said is when hotels open, these 2,800, 900-odd rooms, don't all open on first of April. They come during the course of the year, and there is a certain start-up period. It takes 100 days to 120 days for a hotel to stabilize, and then to reach its normal operating level, it can take two years, it can take three years in some cases. You open, and then you have to close. Like, we opened in Gangtok, and after 10 days, there was a landslide and the occupancy fell to 0%. Then the hotel went and shot up and was doing, like, phenomenally well, and another 10 days ago, there was another landslide. So sometimes some of these new properties are also taking a bit longer till the infrastructure also catches up.
Chia Kutir, on the other hand, in the same, similar market, has never had an issue. Since day one, when it opened, it's been like a home run. So I think, the way to look at it is that, that when you add these rooms or the number of hotels in your modeling that you do, or the way you project, is you have to take it as operational fully after first year. Because, not everything, as I said, will open on first of April. Things also open in the month of February or in the month of March.
I think just to add there, this is a very well-distributed pipeline between, you know, the top markets and, you know, the new, newer locations which we were alluding earlier in the call. So almost half of the pipeline would actually be, or maybe 45% would be outside the top media markets and the top eight cities of India. So where, you know, sectorally, you are kind of, you know, like, creating a destination or there are one or two hotels, you are adding the third hotel out there. So it also creates your own demand. Some of these things, you know, create their own demand. So I don't think there's any risk of cannibalization when this pipeline comes online.
Sure, sir, that's very helpful. Thank you in office.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, if you were to dissect this double-digit growth aspiration that you have for rest of FY 2025 further, how do you see the trends as far as the leisure and the business markets are concerned for rest of FY 2025? And, with so many visa-free and well-priced destinations now available to Indian passports, do you see outbound tourism potentially cannibalizing domestic tourism as well as, you know, for the rest of FY 2025?
You know, for us, the double-digit growth has almost become like a standard. It's not aspirational. So just if we take a normal inflation increase plus the not like for like growth, we should get that double digit number easily. It's not, it's not some kind of a, very, very difficult task out there, unless something was to go wrong in a market like it went with the COVID or some event which is beyond our reasonable control. Whether it comes from domestic or it comes from international, I think, the way the markets have moved in our sector, the most important factor still remains: are we in an oversupplied market or is demand outpacing supply? So at the moment, the key markets that we have, demand is outpacing supply. People are spending still money on leisure.
Goa still remains a favorite destination. If you even look, despite the heat wave, at the RevPAR of Q1, it's the highest in Goa and not in Mumbai or Delhi. So there is, and Goa is lower than last year and still the highest. So I think it shows that the markets have also stabilized and improved over the years. And important thing is some new markets that will be coming and becoming more and more attractive for us, that will be the interesting watch. And if we would be presenting one slide on the top ten, or will we be adding another ten because of the brandscape that has changed? Well, many markets may be very interesting for Ginger. We recently opened a Ginger in Nagpur, and it's off to a flying start.
So it's as good a start as we've had with Ginger in Santac ruz. Is Nagpur on our list of the markets that we show to you? The answer is no. So I think, as these quarters and time goes by, we will also keep evolving this data that we share with you, which also sometimes surprises us because, when we entered with Ginger in Nagpur, we knew it was a good market. But if it could be that good, I don't think we expected that either from day one.
Sure.
And I think just to add, add to that, if you look at our inventory mix, what's operational and our revenue mix, a large portion of that is actually city revenue. So, you know, which is really the big cities where people, if they want to come to the city, it's not that they will, you know, instead of coming to Bombay, they'll say, "I'll go to Bangkok," right? So any other Asian city, holiday city. So those, those markets are basically meant for, you know, not necessarily only for leisure. It means they're transit hubs. They're meant for business interactions, they're meant for MICE activity. And those markets will continue to remain robust in spite of what has happened on outbound tourism. And if you look at last year's number, outbound tourism did exceed pre-COVID numbers, but, you know, we were not impacted by that.
The other thing is, what kind of hotels are also opening, which are on our own balance sheet? So we are opening the Taj at Cochin International Airport in November this year. That's absolutely on track and on time. I think these are. Then we will open in Kevadia two of the company-owned properties. Then we have large properties already gone under construction. The groundbreaking, you know, ceremony has been done at the Bengaluru International Airport for 750 rooms with a combo hotel of Vivanta and Ginger. So I think that is some of those things which are very interesting for our portfolio and very. And a lot of renovation happened because it's the right time to do the renovation in Q1. You know, as I said, Jai Mahal.
Jai Mahal is a lease for us, and that means we get the benefit of the entire revenue. It makes a lot of money. Although everybody loves Rambagh for its iconic status, but Jai Mahal has always made four times more money for us as a company than Rambagh made. You know, there were 30 rooms which were taken out and put under the renovation in Jai Mahal. And all this is now slowly coming back into operation. And Malabar, the property is almost done, but not fully done. It will be middle of August when it will be fully done, which has had an impact on overall results, but as a brand, it has an impact on everything, including our presence in the city of Cochin.
Sure. Thanks for the detailed clarification. My second question is on the FTA front. As we understand, bulk of the 10 million FTAs that we have seen in CY 2019 are, you know, India, people of Indian origin with foreign passports. And most of the genuine foreign tourists, I think that's understandably a much lower number. So, what are the trends that you're seeing in terms of the recovery as far as this segment of the FTA recovery is concerned?
Currently, we mentioned that we are hoping as of October that real recovery will be soon. Also, last year, the numbers were a bit tweaked because of India being the host country for the G20. So we had a lot of those one-off. I think we have to adjust for that statistics, not just the NRIs coming in, but also a lot of people came because of G20. But the good news for the sector and its resilience is that without World Cup cricket or without G20, we are still, you know. And all those one-off events which everybody spoke about last year, we are still in line or above last year.
Also, as the flight connectivity goes up, right? I mean, the cities are still getting connected. They're still not back to pre-COVID level. You know, while the two big airline groups have ordered planes, they still haven't got them on the ground. And as they come, start coming up, more and more, direct flights between Europe and, you know, different cities of India will actually start making, you know, a lot of FTAs come in. That's because that's one of the biggest factor while deciding which destination to go to.
Sure. And then last question, you know, any meaningful expectations from the upcoming budget, which you think could potentially surprise the industry positively? As we understand that, you know, the 18% slab tax seems to be a bit burdensome, and hence, the industry is lobbying for lower rates.
Yeah. We'll be whatever comes, we will take, if something comes. Let's just hope for the best. We don't want to speculate. It's our, our results call and not for the budget.
Great. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Prateek, the line for you has been unmuted. Yes, please proceed.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of follow-up questions. Firstly, on. Can you comment on, like, this recently there was this UP government, some tweaks in bylaws which said, which we read about there, like, there can be, like, some 200,000 more hotel rooms can be expected because of the expected land area per hotel. Is this something, which we are also looking at closely? Or how, how should we see it?
Prateek, I hope, you know, India has only 200,000 branded rooms. If we can start getting 200 in UP branded rooms, I mean, I don't know what rooms, who spoke about that. But the total branded room supply in India is equal to that of Dubai and Singapore put together. We can't get 200,000 rooms in one state.
Yeah, I also felt so, but that, I, I don't know, that statement said so. Maybe it was a mix of branded plus non-branded.
No, but maybe somebody just mixed a zero here or there, you know. It's a typo or something like this. I wish we could grow at that kind of speed. It would be good for the sector and more concentrated in the market. If we could get 200,000 in entire India, and we had our fair share of 10%-20%, then we would be adding 20,000-30,000 rooms.
Right. Okay. And just-
Total number of rooms today, right? In operation.
I know. Yeah, exactly. That felt like a very large number, so. But okay, and second, this is just curious question, like regarding the Ambani family wedding this month in the city. Did that result into, like, all-time high rates, higher than December rates or quarterly rates, for the industry? Or is it something very similar to mega events which we saw last year as well, and similarly high rates, for the sector in Mumbai, particularly?
Yeah, definitely Mumbai benefited from a large event. And while you were chatting, we just googled. You're right, that there is actually an online statement which says 200,000 rooms in UP. So I'm sorry, I was not trying to be cynical, but, you know, it's not realistic. So it's for me, if it happens, very good, wonderful. I don't think it's going to happen that fast. But it does not say by which year. The only thing, the article which I just glanced through it, it does not mention the year. So if it's 200,000 rooms by India, 2047, maybe it's, it's a possibility.
Uh, okay.
Mumbai did very well in that one-off event as a city, as you asked, so that we can confirm.
Yeah, just that, you know, these events need not be one-off. I mean, there are hopefully larger and bigger weddings which are gonna happen in here. And the good part is that we have, 12 more nights, which is what we mentioned earlier in the call, so July to March. And so every quarter is actually positive from previous quarter of last year.
No, sorry. So you mean this, what Ankur meant is the same quarter of last year in terms of having 12 more wedding dates distributed over the remaining quarters.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, great, sir, thank you, and onwards.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. I have a couple of questions from my side. First question is on the New York market, given that our entity has definitely seen a growth in Q1 and even the EBITDA margin has improved. Could you throw some light on the performance of the recovery seen in that market, particularly?
Rahul, very good question. Yes, we have seen better performance in New York, and San Francisco is still lagging behind, but we believe this is a short-term trend. Another six to eight months, post-elections in U.S. will be fine. But as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I will also add here that, St. James' Court, London, which always has done very well for us, we had some renovations ongoing there, but also U.K. had elections on fourth of July, so a lot of the activity had gone down. So we are hoping that as of now, for this quarter, because every time during Wimbledon, it's all doing very well. So that's not a benchmark. Now that Wimbledon is over, let's see how London starts recovering with the new government in place.
At a very high level, it's not that we don't do well. We are only talking, still talking about 32% EBITDA margin in first quarter in London. So, so let's see how that evolves. We remain cautiously optimistic on London. We will be very prudent in New York, the market where we are not able to do much is San Francisco. But thank God, it's got a lease. We own the property, and it's debt-free, so, we don't get hit as much as we would have got hit if it was, if it was a lease like The Pierre in New York .
Understood. So my second question is regarding the Taj SATS kitchen to be opened near the Noida Airport. When will that come into operation?
By March 2025. I mean, between March to June of next year.
Actually, basically, it'll come along with the when the airport is operational, which is expected sometime, you know, towards the end of second half. Otherwise, it's end of first half, so around June. May, June.
Okay, got it. Question three from my side is, on a structural basis, when we look at management fees that IHCL has earned, which is typically 5%-7% of the hotel revenue. On a structural basis in the long term, do you see that us negotiating better fees going forward, and what is the scope of this fee on the upside, in the long term?
Well, long term, you know, anything could be the answer, but what we have, what we had guided under our Ahvaan 2025, we should achieve that easily. 2025, we should achieve that 600+ number this year, which would have been, you know, several hundred percentage points increase over the last three, four, five years. So I think that 600 for sure is in there.
Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take one last question, which will be from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you so much for giving another opportunity. Puneet, in terms of your loyalty program, just wanted to understand if you analyze the profile and the passengers. So, if you could give us a bit of a color in terms of how many passengers, how many customers are repetitive customers-
Mm-hmm.
Do you have a sort of a profiling in terms of, you know, X%? X amount of people stay at least ten times, you know, so similar to what the airline does, you know, so knowing your customer better. So do you have that kind of profiling for your loyalty members? And if you could give us a bit of a color on that, please.
No, we are trying to get there, Achal. As you know, this number for us before joining Tata Neu was a little bit around 2 million, and it's already almost grown, you know, to almost triple the size. But within that, I think we had some great successes and some not such great successes. But I think the evolution of the whole program for us has been phenomenal because the expense, the investment is going in from Tata Digital. We are just a great supporter and the first founding member. And we remain cautiously optimistic that this will keep improving.
Now, the loyalty-led revenue on what you said in terms of repeat members, which came from that is around 32% is the figure we have, where we say that it is really a repeat customer or in terms of revenue that we get. But this number is only going to keep improving as the Tata Neu platform matures, which is not even two and a half years in operation. I think another year or so, it will mature, by then.
Yes.
And then we can take the full year benefit. But whenever you want offline, if you come, we will have you sit with our, loyalty experts, and, they can give you all exactly where it comes from, what is loyalty-led, how much is coming from the app, how much is coming because it's a loyalty customer. So how many are, you know, still very much into Taj Inner Circle, and how much revenue is generated by just Platinum and Gold members versus what is Copper, which is the lowest tier. So we can get you all that information. You can visit us one day in the office, or we can have a call organized for you.
I think also just to add, you know, overall, the Tata Neu platform has almost 80-100 million customers. So, you know, the potential to expand on this number is actually pretty large.
Absolutely, absolutely. No, I mean, I'm actually big, you know, I have a big faith or a big hopes, because I know that how powerful loyalty members, loyalty programs can be, you know, from specific on the airlines. It's a very big thing, right? But anyway, yeah, sure, we can take offline. Thank you so much, and good luck.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, everyone, for joining the call, and thank you for all your questions. On behalf of my colleagues, CFO, Ankur Dalwani, and myself, we look forward to interacting with you in person or offline, over the next months and definitely at the latest by the next call at the end of quarter two results. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening and a great weekend ahead, preferably at a Taj or any of our other properties. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of the Indian Hotels Company Limited, that concludes this conference.