Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Indian Hotels Company Limited earnings conference call for the quarter ended 31st December 2024. On call with us, we have Mr. Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director and CEO, IHCL. Mr. Ankur Dalwani, EVP and CFO, IHCL. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.
Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Chhatwal.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our global conference call for Q3 2024-2025. We are pleased to inform you that we have continued our record performance for the 11th consecutive quarter on the back of continued growth momentum and key strategic initiatives. I'll now outline, like in the last few quarters, the 10 key highlights for this quarter. Beginning with number one, strong financial performance. For the very first time in history, the quarterly EBITDA of IHCL crossed INR 1,000 crores.
On a consolidated basis, IHCL delivered record performance in Q3 with 29% revenue growth and 80 basis points margin expansion over the same period last year. This is despite consolidating TajSATS as a subsidiary, which has lower margins than the hotel segment. Our consolidated revenue stood at INR 2,592 crores, and our EBITDA margin expanded to 39.4% in Q3.
Our reported profit after tax stood at INR 582 crores, highest ever quarterly PAT in IHCL's history. IHCL's hotel segment showcased 16% revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion of 230 basis points to 40.9% in Q3. Our standalone performance in Q3 was also the best ever, with 15% growth in revenue to INR 1,517 crores and EBITDA margin expansion by 240 basis points to 47.8%. Standalone PAT grew 23% to INR 469 crores, taking PAT margin to 30.9%.
Number two, double-digit RevPAR growth. IHCL delivered 13% consolidated RevPAR growth on a domestic like-for-like basis, on the back of demand continuing to outpace supply and our asset management initiatives. We have always guided and given details on all our assets that we are either reimagining or renovating, or how we have been using CapEx to drive operating leverage in the owned and standalone portfolio.
This strong performance helped IHCL command a RevPAR premium of 78% over the industry in the Indian market, thus maintaining the premium positioning in each of the segments we operate in. Our international consolidated portfolio reported a double-digit revenue growth driven by strong performance at The Pierre in New York. Number three is about our expansion momentum and our growth.
In Q3, we signed 20 hotels and opened eight new hotels. In the current financial year for the period April to December, we have signed 55 new hotels and opened 20 hotels. We have set a new growth benchmark with 85 signings and 40 openings in the calendar year 2024, taking our portfolio to 360 hotels with an industry-leading pipeline of 123 hotels as of 31st December 2024. Fourth is our combination of capital-light growth with capital-heavy, but capital-light growth being a key margin driver.
On the back of our Capital-Light growth strategy, our Management Fees in Q3 was INR 177 crores, an increase of 32% over the same period last year. This was driven by 13% net unit growth in hotel rooms, increase in total revenue per available room, technical fees, and new fee income streams such as Brand Fee. Number five, new businesses continue to grow, and the growth in Q3 was 40% on the top line.
Our new businesses vertical comprising Reimagined Ginger, Qmin, and amã Stays & Trails delivered a 40% growth in Q3 consolidated revenue. As of this month, we have also completed the acquisition of Tree of Life, which will get added to the new businesses portfolio. Ginger's consolidated revenue grew 43% year-on-year to INR 157 crores, while expanding EBITDA margin by 200 basis points to 45%.
We have guided previously that we expect Lean Luxe and New Gingers to keep performing at north of 50%, and this 45% is a good proof of the formula that we have guided upon when it comes to this brand. Qmin has expanded to 60-plus outlets, and in addition to serving as an F&B brand for Ginger Hotels, which we also call the Qminization of Ginger, has also established presence in the interim in Q3 in two Westside stores through a shop-in-shop format.
And further, Qmin has launched operations at Chennai and Kolkata airports in partnership with TFS. Going on, a mã Stays & Trails reached a milestone of 250 bungalows in portfolio with 119 in operations. Number six is the company's focus on cost and digital.
Driven by a continued focus on cost optimization and initiatives to enhance operating leverage, the hotel segment delivered a notable improvement in operating EBITDA margins. For Q3, the operating EBITDA margin expanded by 210 basis points to 39.4%, while the nine-month period grew by 220 basis points to 33%. These gains reflect the success of ongoing efforts to streamline operations, boost productivity, and deliver sustainable growth. We remain committed to our digital transformation journey.
Following the successful launch of our new website for Taj Hotels in Q1, we recently unveiled the redesigned website for amã Stays & Trails. Progress is well underway on new websites for Ginger and Vivanta, which will go live in H1 2025-2026, and additionally, significant progress is being made in upgrading our core systems, including the migration to SAP for finance and HR functions and industry-leading Opera Cloud PMS.
Number seven on Tata Neu, our collaboration with Tata Neu Loyalty Platform has now eight million members, with loyalty-led contribution in revenue rising to 40% of our enterprise-level revenue. The unwavering loyalty of our customers is visible in our increasing enterprise NPS scores, which stood at 74 for year-to-date 2024-2025, up from 72 in the corresponding period last year.
On number nine, on talent, we remain committed to investing in our talent and capabilities of the future with our industry-leading charter-building and training programs. We have also launched multiple scholarships in association with global universities to help nurture human capital for us in the sector. Several of our middle management colleagues have completed their executive MBA recently from renowned universities in Europe.
Our ongoing scholarship program of sending two executives to ESSEC Business School in France continues now in its fourth year, with partnership in place for the four following years, as well as sending our senior executives to Ivy Schools for advanced management programs or other alternative programs which are relevant for their jobs and for the organization. Are all in place.
And not only this, we have launched a series of programs which are related to hotel development right from the hotel school, which we called HDP, also hotel operational trainee apprenticeship programs, and they are continuous. They are witnessing a continuous investment so that we are future-ready when it comes to our talent and growth of our people from within the organization. Number nine, Paathya. We continue to stay focused on achieving our stated goals under Paathya.
IHCL now uses 37% energy from renewable sources and recycles 48% of water. We have given the guidance of 50% as a source for renewable energy by 2030, and we are already at 37% and 100% use of recycled water by then by 2030. So all these goals that we have guided on are till 2030. IHCL also partners and operates 46 skill centers today across 20 states in India.
That gets me to the final point, which is point number 10 in terms of the outlook for Q4 and beyond. We are happy to say that we find that the Q4 is also expected to be in similar line as Q3, whether it comes on a top-line growth or other metrics, and we are confident of definitely delivering on the double-digit growth that we have promised and guided the market on from the previous year.
A lot of us would recall that in Q1, which was a little bit impacted by excessive heat and elections, there were doubts on this, but now we have had two more quarters which have taken us far beyond that number. With large-scale events like Mahakumbh, concerts like Coldplay, and the extended wedding season in Q4, we remain confident of delivering all the metrics and the guidance that we have guided the market upon, whether during our capital market day or during our investor calls.
In conclusion, we expect to deliver strong growth with sustained margins, continuous portfolio growth, continuous talent growth, continuous optimization on the cost per room basis, and with 20 hotel openings so far, we are well on track to achieve our committed target of opening 25 hotels in the current financial year, which we have also guided would go up to 30 hotels as of the following financial year. Our focus also remains on scaling our new businesses.
We are spending a lot of money, as you heard, on the new website of amã, on the new initiatives that we are building with all these new businesses, and for several quarters in the past, we have been putting more marketing money to grow and scale up these businesses so that they become stronger contributors to our better hedging of revenues, better hedging of profits, and optimizing of our margins.
They also help to evolve our brand scale, strengthen our competitive advantage with prudent capital allocation in all these strategic initiatives. Thank you so much for your attention, and we now open the floor for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on a touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the question participants. The first question comes from the line of Meet Jain with Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Hello sir, thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, sir. So my first question is regarding the occupancy in the standalone business.
In 2Q versus 3Q, we have seen a flat occupancy, while our ARR has grown by almost 13% YoY and significantly in the Q1, Q basis. So just what we understand in terms of occupancy, when we see our historical trends, we see a strong occupancy increase in 3Q versus 2Q. So can you shed some light on the Paathya's occupancy for this quarter?
You know, I'm sorry that I wanted Mr. Dalwani to answer, but I will answer. You know, 78% occupancy is very high. It's good that it has not gone down. If we operate at 78 or 79 or 80, the only thing that happens is the rates will keep going up. If we go back three quarters or four quarters, the question was, this year we have G20, we have World Cup, what will happen next year?
And you see that there is no change in occupancy, and the rates have gone up. And we don't expect anything to change as there are more and more business delegations coming into India, so the demand on both business and leisure remains quite robust, which will help the standalone occupancy, and that is what is creating the higher rate, which in turn is creating higher flow-through, which is helping us get to that 47%-48% EBITDA margin on standalone.
Yeah, I think we should. I'll encourage you to look at RevPAR rather than looking at occupancy because this is a lot of time it's a strategic goal to grow via ARR rather than occupancy. And like Mr. Chhatwal said, only at levels of 80% plus for most of the hotels, it's probably prudent to drive revenue growth through RevPAR, through ARR increase, and that also increases the margin profile for the hotel. So I think this is how we look at the business when we look at it hotel by hotel.
Yes, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate for the answer. The other question is on city-wide trends. Like in Goa, we have seen certain things like Goa was muted in terms of travel for the December month. So how was it for our hotel properties? Have we seen such kind of impact on that or because we are seeing a 2% kind of growth in our city-wide?
So if you look at the enterprise growth, which we put out about 5% for Goa as well, I think the growth, the good thing is the growth is actually pretty spread out. It's not concentrated on one particular market. I think most markets have done reasonably well, and Goa is already operating at a reasonably high base. So we are okay, quite happy with what's happened at the performance of the Goa hotels.
There was some renovation which also got completed this quarter, so there was an impact on that which is reflected in the consol numbers. But I think overall, if you look at various markets, they have done quite well, whether it's Rajasthan, whether it's the core markets of Delhi, Bombay, they've all done well.
Sure, sure. Are we seeing a recovery in the Bangalore market?
See, Bangalore last year we had a high base, but this quarter, if you see, it's been a 13% growth on console and 12% on enterprise. So it's actually done quite well.
Understood. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Prateek Kumar with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir, and congrats on the strong results. My first question is on, I mean, outlook. While you have suggested Q4 being strong, I'm sure you will start having questions now for FY26, and you have given like a 2030 outlook, which is very affirming your double-digit trend. But any early signs you can sort of indicate for FY26, what you're looking at based on bookings?
So I think we'll come back to you after Q4 results for FY26.
But I think broadly, if you think about it, Q1 has got a good wedding season this year, which wasn't the case last year. So we'll see how that plays out. Let's see how the heat wave, if there's a heat wave or not, because that was also a factor last time. And so in general, with the continued business demand, which is therefore in the city hotels and leisure destinations, I think the momentum continues to be strong. And there are several events which are lined up for Q4. We have listed a few of them, but I think Q1 is also looking good. Whichever you want to add in.
Yeah, Prateek, the supply is not going to catch up that fast with the demand. So even if demand softens a bit, still it will continue to outpace supply. That's one.
Second is whether the growth is 6% in GDP, 6.5% or 5.0%. It's still pretty healthy growth. If India keeps moving in that direction that it is moving, the hospitality sector is only beginning to write the new narrative for India at 2047. Of course, till 2047, there will be some headwinds just beyond the next year and the year after that and the year after that. In principle, the fundamentals have never been as strong as they are now.
That is the second factor that's not going to change. For our portfolio, very importantly, if you look at it, more than 50% of our portfolio is actually in the pipeline. In other words, the pipeline represents more than 50% of the hotel in operations.
With this kind of not like-for-like growth that too almost 80% on a capital light model, we do expect to mitigate should there ever be any softness that comes in. Also our continuous efforts on asset management. Now, the previous question was related to Goa also. See, Goa in this quarter may not show that kind of huge massive growth that Mumbai or Delhi might show.
But Delhi has had the renovation of Taj Mansingh behind. Whereas Goa, we are continuously investing money in Holiday Village. One third of Holiday Village is left and almost the main block of. So there is some displacement out there, and still we are doing so well. But by doing so, we are building a competitive advantage for the future, and we are repositioning this hotel, which is Fort Aguada, just celebrated 50 years.
So a hotel which is 50 years in the market, the first luxury hotel of Goa, is getting a security on its future for the next few decades to come. So I think that's how we are looking at it. We are not taking just a view on a quarter or a half year or a year, rather the long-term competitive advantage. And because we have been doing it for several years now, we think that we are very well positioned. And going forward, these are the initiatives which will help us to keep having the right mix of operating leverage with margin expansion through capital light business.
Right, sir. And just for clarification, Q4 and Q1, particularly, we have had soft base, right? So we may have an accelerated growth in the next six months and maybe then normalization in the maybe later period. Is that the right understanding?
No normalization. We should. If everything stays same today, I have one more additional source which has not kicked in the way it should have kicked in, and that is your foreign tourist arrivals. We're still at a lower end on the pre-COVID. Normally, it should have been at least 120% of the pre-COVID level by now because we are talking about, yeah, we're talking about 2019, 2020 figures, and we are in 2024, 2025.
So it should, instead of minus 10%, minus 15%, which is also very difficult statistics as Indian diaspora has grown very strong outside of India, which may have an OCI or a PIO card. So a lot of those arrivals are considered foreign tourist arrival, but they're not the real foreign tourists.
So I think at some point post-COVID, in certain markets, you're beginning to see the foreign tourists are beginning to travel, and at some point, those tourism-driven activities will also come to a normalization plus 10% or 15% or 20%, and that would certainly help the luxury side of the portfolio and for us, our palaces and our presence in key gateway destinations in India.
Thank you, sir. I'll get back to the queue.
Okay.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Achal Kumar with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, Achal, congratulations on a very strong set of numbers. A couple of questions. First of all, very quickly on the Q4, while you guide on the revenue side, any color on how do we see the RevPAR growth and occupancy levels year on year?
I think the same trend which we saw in Q3 in terms of high single-digit to low double-digit kind of a growth on RevPAR, which is what we did in Q3. That trend on the domestic market should hold up. There are, like I said, no, I think on the horizon, which makes us feel that there is a dip in the RevPAR expected in this quarter. So we remain confident on that front. And so I think from a trend perspective, that should hold up.
Right, right. Perfect. Otherwise, I mean, of course, we've been talking about the tight capacity, and that is driving the RevPAR growth. I mean, if you look at, of course, we all have studied economics, there is a term called price sensitivity or demand elasticity. Now, of course, how do you see the pricing today?
I mean, the pricing is already very high. Do you share the same thoughts, or do you think the prices, there is still scope for the prices to go up despite the fact that the capacity is very tight? How do you see it? Do you think the prices will continue to go up, or do you think we have very close to the peak in terms of pricing and now, of course, the scope to play with the occupancy levels?
So I think we talked about long-term factors in the capital market day where we said the pricing today is actually not sufficient to attract the greenfield sort of capacity, which includes land acquisition, which is basically the case which continues even today, and this I'm talking about in general.
There could obviously be some markets where greenfield would come up, but in general, this is not resulting in a gold sort of rush in terms of supply coming up from people buying land and then putting up new assets. So I think that's point number one. I think the point number two is that even if you look at on a dollar per room night basis, we continue to be lower than even what we were 15 years back or 16 years back.
I think that's a very important factor if you think about the economics of the sector. And I think thirdly, if you look at the currency tailwinds, actually, in a way, it's favorable from our perspective because it makes it cheaper for people to come in, and it also makes it difficult for people to go out.
I think that's another factor which plays to our advantage. And at the end of the day, if people have to travel for business or come to meetings in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, or any of the big cities, it is not an event which can be postponed forever. They may defer it, but that's really not a discretionary sort of item, and that has always been the case.
In our case, as you know, Achal, a large portion of our portfolio drives revenues from city hotels, which makes us much more resilient and then makes us sort of play into the tailwinds for the sector. On the leisure side, I think with the factors which Mr. Chhatwal also referred to, the FTA arrivals and the fact that we are having the currency tailwinds now in our favor, that should also help going forward.
Actually, Ankur, that was my question also. I mean, I wanted to ask because I think if you look at Delta recently reported its result, they said they talked about the currency, favorable currency since US dollar has appreciated. Have you really noticed that in terms of increasing inbound international tourism, or is that just a bit of a theoretical thing as of now and we have not seen in the numbers?
Yeah, it's too early because this is the rupee movement has happened very recently, but it's only also one of the factors. It's not the only factor, as you know, for a foreign tourist to make a decision, but I think from a competitiveness of the sector, it only helps.
I think that's the point I'm trying to make, and it will eventually also I mean, there are many factors which tourists will think about, but this is one of the reasons, one of the factors which will probably help us, and it also effectively also makes domestic tourists more inclined to travel in India than going abroad.
Right. Okay. Fine. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Abhay Khaitan with Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks, Puneet and Ankur, for the opportunity. Firstly, I would like to congratulate you again for another strong quarter. So my question is on RevPAR growth. So I can see the quarters are 13% RevPAR growth YOY, but is it possible to see the sequential momentum of growth in RevPAR, as in what was the growth in October, November, and December separately?
Because overall, economic indicators have seen some weakness in the last quarter. So I just want to correlate if you see a similar trend for hotels as well.
No, the growth base in December is the highest. So the growth in October and November was stronger in percentage terms than in December. If I remember correctly, as the team looks for the exact numbers, I think it was like 16%, 15%, and 13%. But I would also encourage you to note that when you're especially looking at India business, rooms revenue is just half of the total revenue.
The other half, which has a very serious impact, is especially the food and beverage. We still have a lot of strong F&B business in hotels, conference business in hotels, but also we have the weddings.
Especially going forward, next year will be one of those first years after three, four years where the number of wedding dates actually increased by five or six more days in the next financial year. I think also going forward, if you looked at next year to do such high revenue with the base that we have done this year in December, in percentage terms, will be possibly lower than in October or November because it is technically always, as long as I can remember, been the best month in several, several, several years.
I think our colleagues found that also so.
Yeah, I think just broadly, October was the lower month among the three months in terms of RevPAR. I think December was second, and November was the best month.
It's also a play of when Diwali is and Dussehra is, and it's also a function of all of that. Therefore, we don't really get into monthly statistics because comparisons become difficult.
I think his question was more if there was some witnessing of slowdown. We have not witnessed any kind of slowdown in December. Having said that, I found one new development. This I would like to share with all the people attending this call. I happened to be in Goa for the New Year, and usually Goa starts getting empty because everybody's asking about Goa on the second of January. We saw a lot of arrivals, and Goa was sold out till sixth of January. Instead of second or third, that it starts getting people start going back.
There were a lot more check-ins happening on first or second of January, maybe where people celebrated New Year at home and decided to come on first or second, which was good for our business because we were not empty on New Year's Eve, but we got three, four days of extra business in January. So that is something new that we have not seen definitely in the previous five, six years.
Yeah. Got it. Got it. Thanks for this. My second question is on Ginger. So we see around 29% growth in room revenue, but how much of it will be driven by addition of new hotels and how is the ARR and occupancy growth trending there?
See, Ginger is one of the nice turnaround stories from where it was for so many years and from where it came to because we reimagined it and we opened the first reimagined Ginger, and eight, nine months later, it was COVID time. So Ginger is really the reimagined Ginger has had only two, three years run, and properties are in different phases of renovation and refurbishment to be upgraded to the new avatar, as we called it, or the reimagination. And we expect Ginger to keep doing well, but that is true for not just Ginger, for the entire portfolio.
I outlined in my opening remarks that our growth, especially not like-for-like growth with the hybrid of capital light and capital heavy model and capital light and heavy both influencing the Ginger brand is going to help us drive growth in all our brands, but definitely after Taj, our second most important brand in the next few years to watch, as I've said in many previous conference calls, will be the Ginger brand.
And with the Qminization of Ginger, that means adding all-day dining and all Ginger properties. It has given it an image uplift and also an offering which is creating a very good price-value relationship, especially in all new Ginger hotels that are opening.
Yeah. I think just to add, I mean, a significant growth in IHCL is also the Qminization point, which is what Mr. Chhatwal just referred to.
That itself, we would have contributed almost, I would think, if you look at the actual figures, it would almost be 25% of the revenue for IHCL coming from F&B. And the room business has actually grown both on the back of RevPAR growth and the new addition. So kind of evenly split between the two. Maybe the new addition in Ginger is higher because it's something where turnaround can be faster. And IHCL actually does not include Ginger Mumbai Airport. If you look at the consolidated Ginger revenues, it's almost 45%, and we gave that number out in the presentation as well.
So can we expect a similar sort of ARR growth for Ginger as we are seeing for the other brands? I mean, something like a high single digit or low double digit? So again, like I said, brand by brand strategy is different.
Ginger could be occupancy driven, but RevPAR growth is again high single digit to low middle digit. And again, within Ginger, we monitor what's called the renovated Ginger portfolio and what's the non-renovated Ginger portfolio. And the non-renovated Ginger portfolio will do much better than the non-renovated portion.
Got it. Thanks for this. I'll get back to the queue. Okay.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Shaleen Kumar with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity. And congrats again for a pretty good set of numbers. I think I've been congratulating you for past many quarters, and I hope this will continue. So sir, just interesting to see Qmin in Westside and airport. What are you thinking about it? Is there some plans around there? Do you want to go out and drop into F&B or just an experimental mode right now?
Not really. I think Qmin started as a brand during COVID with the home delivery, and as the business came back, home delivery was not as much in demand from hotels as was the case during COVID. So the love for the brand has been immense that we have seen, and when we put it in Ginger, it was a big success.
And the companies that have gone into partnership with us, TFS runs a lot of F&B in different airports on a franchise model. So it's something that they are scaling up, which is good. So that's why you create brands so that you can leverage your brand strength and other people grow on it.
Westside, coming from within the group, obviously, there is also a lot of love because they were all Qmin dependent during COVID time. So there's a good memory. There's a good recall on Qmin. Then also, the business model is very important. See, our business model is not based on any fixed rents.
So either we are getting a brand fee or a franchise fee from a franchisee like at the airport, or we are just doing a revenue share. And we have a lot of other queries also from within the group to leverage the Qmin even more significantly, whether it's in the TajSATS for institutional catering or it is BigBasket. So we are exploring as and when these things become real or this thing, we will obviously share with you, Shaleen, like in the past.
At the moment, they're still on the drawing board, and the brand in its GMV has crossed INR 150 crores, and it's very good because these brands have been started with zero capital investment, and whatever we are getting is incremental and is also helping us develop good name for the brand, but also helping the image of other brands like Ginger, as I said earlier.
Got it, sir. I'm just changing gear and want to ask you one more question. Again, this is a little bit more of a fundamental question. Let's see, we're talking about RevPAR, and obviously, us in the street always have a question, can we grow RevPAR and continue to grow RevPAR? Right? But if you go a little beneath that.
Shaleen, it's very difficult to follow you. There is. Like last quarter, we had some challenge in hearing you clearly. By mistake.
Is it better, sir?
Oh, very good. I don't know. Whatever you did, just keep it that way.
Thank you. Sorry for that. Sorry, sorry for that. So I was saying, there is a I just want to ask one fundamental question here. So there is a worry around RevPAR, not worry actually, just thought process that how long can the RevPAR grow and demand elasticity in elasticity. So but if you go a little under that, there are a type of customers who have a very low demand elasticity or can say they are not sensitive to the price.
So when you look at your mix of customers, transient, corporate, MICE, do you think they can give you the scope for some changes here? Right? There is a portion of customers which can continue to grow bigger and bigger so that you can easily increase your RevPAR. Right? Can there be some structural changes that can happen over there?
I'm not sure. We understand. Maybe we can take this offline, but all I can say is the only brand we have in the mid-market or the lower side is Ginger. All our other brands, traditional ones and the new ones, are in the upscale, upper upscale or luxury. There's a sensitivity to pricing is lower.
That's what I'm saying.
Even in Ginger, we're trying to give that lean luxury kind of feeling with the art and the design that we have put in there. So the premiumization, I think, would be the right word. The premiumization of brands is a trend that one could say is common across sectors. It doesn't matter which sector you are in or the feeling of premiumization.
I think there we are very well positioned because we are dealing only in the premiumization. The only brand which was not dealing with premiumization 10 years ago or eight years ago or 15 years ago was Ginger, which we have completely changed and evolved. I think we are very positive that the value proposition has to be there. You must feel that you're getting value. But if you're getting it with the premiumization of the brand, this will be fine.
The same is the story with Gateway. We have relaunched the reimagined Gateway. The Gateway that we have reimagined has nothing to do with the Gateway of past. That we expect the same trend what has happened in Ginger over three, four years to also happen with the Gateway brand over the next three, four, five years.
Yeah. And if you look at the data we put out, Shaleen, actually in the presentation, we look at how the brands have grown over the last five years consistently and also quarter by quarter RevPAR growth.
Let me just explain what I was asking. I was asking in your customer mix, like you have transient, you have corporate, you have leisure, right? So can we continue to see the change here? Maybe leisure is the one who are the most insensitive. So you think leisure can continue to grow faster and the proportion of, let's say, transient or corporate will shift towards more leisure or towards more MICE? Do you think that way? So that was my question, how the customer mix will change.
Towards more MICE is possible in some key markets like Delhi and Mumbai because of the events that are beginning to happen in Bharat Mandapam or Yashobhoomi or Jio we have seen. When Jio has a good event or BKC is having a lot of activity, then within five kilometer radius, everything is sold out. There's no rooms available. So that, I think, is just the beginning, especially for Delhi and more such places. I think a lot of states plan big convention centers, and that will attract business which has not yet come into India.
So there'll be new events, new congresses, new big global conferences happening because there was no space to host 3,000, 4,000 people. And if you have a hall, then you don't have place to put up 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people.
Or even events.
Or even events. So these things will evolve over the next three, four, five years.
Got it. Got it. Just last one bit, updates on Sea Rock?
It's a very good question. I was wondering, up till now, no one has asked us about Sea Rock. So we have received one of the most important permission, which is called IOD, intimation of disapproval. We have received that. Now, the last permission that is left is the CC, which is the commencement certificate. And we need an approval on the additional height that we want from the airport authorities. So basically, we think that we have got very close so that construction could commence in the second half of this year.
Yeah. The height approval has already been received up to a certain level. Beyond that, you need to apply for additional height approval. So I think that's also progressed from the last time we had given an update.
Got it. Got it. Great.
Which is again in line, Shaleen, with what we had promised that by the end of the year, we will have something. And the delay was because there were things happening in the state, which is all happened, done. So there are certain things that cannot happen in a certain period. And that's how we had given that guidance, and that's where we are. And very happy to report that we have moved the needle in a very big way for Sea Rock.
That's good to hear. Thank you so much. And that's from my side, and best of luck. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Rahul Jain with PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Mr. Jain, please go ahead with your question.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please. Yes.
Good evening, sir. I just had a couple of questions for you. The first one is on how do you see the US and UK subsidiary performing in the rest of FY25, FY26? Is there any demand outlook, any significant change? Because the EBITDA performance for especially the US market is on the positive trend. So is there anything that you can elaborate on?
Very good question, Rahul, because I think the world has had a very challenging situation with San Francisco. And we have a hotel there, the Campton Place, which has also been hurt. There was a big labor strike out there. Our hotel was not impacted, but with all the three, four months of protests that were going on in that part of town, it had a serious impact on business.
Safety, security, and all that has been an issue. We have all seen it on television and news channels in a beautiful city like San Francisco. It seems that it has settled down now, and things will start improving, which will really help us. What we can share is that yesterday, the JPMorgan conference, the annual one in San Francisco, concluded.
And our hotel has done marginally better than last year, which is not about how we have done, which means that the market must have done better, and there was the ability to pay, which is very positive news for us. Then on the second, we are hoping that this time the Q4 will be better than normal Q4s because of the swearing in of the new president, and a lot of people would be traveling to the US now or later.
And then if you're going to Washington, you might combine New York with it, which brings in additional business. So you must have noticed in our Q3 and the Q2, and actually throughout this year, we have done pretty well with Pierre in New York. And we don't expect that to change. We think we'll keep doing better based on the seasonality, the quarter, the way it is. So Q4 of last year versus Q4 of this year in Pierre should be definitely better.
But more important is San Francisco, which was struggling as a city that none of us would have ever thought of. So that takes care of the US Then we have London. London has a double impact for us. One, the market is a bit softer, as we have all read. There is a lot of new supply that has gone into London.
We've still been able to hold ground because we have very strong brand equity in London, especially Indians traveling to UK or to London prefer to stay at the Taj. We have not seen any change in that trend, but the growth in London is not expected to be the way we would have thought maybe six, eight months ago for the next few months, but if we can hold our grounds, and that brings me to the second reason, is we have been spending a lot of money in upgrading that asset.
which has helped us to show those results with a very beautiful courtyard, with the addition of House of Ming, we added the Chambers there, we added the new all-day dining there, so we have plans to renovate the Quilon, we have plans to increase the size of Chambers.
So there is a lot of activity which is happening in London because it is the second after New York and London are the two largest lodging markets of the world, followed by Paris. So these are the top three. So both these markets are important for our brand. And we think that in this quarter, we are in a better position because of San Francisco's positivity. If London stays the same, Pierre keeps improving like it has done in the last several quarters, then it should look better for us going forward in the next quarters.
Got it, sir. So my second question is regarding the SeleQtions that we're opening in Uttarakhand in Q4. It's under the franchise model. Is there any, could you highlight any key differentiation from our current operating models, and how does the franchisee differentiate from what we are currently doing?
So I'm glad you picked it up. So with the same group, we did the one and only franchise before, which was the Pilibhit House in Haridwar. And after six months, they came back and said, "Convert into management contract." However, and having said that, they are a very professional and an experienced hotel group, which has given us other properties like Taj in Corbett, Pilibhit House in Haridwar, and this property.
And we think, as they operate only in Uttarakhand, that they are very strong in that market. And we are very happy. We don't think India is really that mature to get into franchise model. We are not—we have never been so keen.
But with an existing partner where we have had a relationship over so many years and a very successful one and with a common understanding and coming from the same background because they are in this business, we think it is worth trying out. And they know this property. They have had it, and they've been running it. So why not give them our brand and distribution and network strength and see if this one works out better on this model? Then why not?
But this is not a model we are going to open to every single individual owner. That's not.
It's an exception.
It's an exception. And we did one for Taj, if you would remember. We did that with Shaleen for the Delhi Airport terminal link development. We are very excited equally about that because you're dealing with a very professional organization and other publicly listed companies.
They know how to work with brands.
So I think these are like one-offs, but we are not going in very strongly with the franchise model.
Got it, sir. Thank you for your answer. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Amit Kadam with Canara Robeco Mutual Fund. Go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Three questions from me. First is just one observation from the presentation slide number 35. I see some churning in Vivanta's portfolio in terms of operating rooms, where the latest number is 3,681 versus last quarter, what we have seen, almost like a 4,062. Any specific reason for this particular churn? That's question number one.
Second is just like in management fees, you have reported other fees as 10 crore. Can you just throw some light? What is it about? So that's question two. Third is just like a little broadish in terms of, as we are focusing more on managed hotels, is there a change in the take rate or I would say profit share in that particular or maybe the percentage of revenue? Or we have seen in the last couple of years or may see in future? Yeah, that's it.
I'm not sure if I understood all of them, but I'll answer you the first one, and then my colleague will answer the others. The first one was related to Vivanta, right? We have had two hotels where a lot of investment has gone in, and they have been upgraded to Taj. One is Surajkund, and the other one is Srinagar, also to get the best impact on rates and the bottom line.
There has been an extension of Srinagar with a number of rooms, and Surajkund is another one. Also, properties like Devi Ratn in Jaipur, you might say, although it was not a Vivanta, it was in the SeleQtions. We have done that consistently over the last five years for whatever reasons in the past, because of financial duress or some of the properties were taken off the Taj network. We got them back.
We have explained that in various quarterly meets and capital market day, how that has worked very well for us and for the Taj brand and in driving the right value.
What was your second question? If you could not follow the question, if you could please repeat. Second question was on the management fees section. You have reported for the quarter INR 177 crore.
In this particular slide only, you have reported 10 crores as the other fees, which I've been observing for the first time, hence wanted some more color on it. So this other fee basically pertains to. It's also an operating fee, which is basically coming from brand fee. If you recall, we had announced a branded residence project, so we're starting to earn fee on that, as well as a technical fee, which we have earned from new signings.
So this is essentially. We're just calling it out to give a little flavor of the growth. Technical fee has always been there, but it's kind of stepped up as we've done more signings. And the brand fee is a new element, but both are expected to sort of. They're not one-off. To be clear, they're not one-off.
They're expected to continue, but it'll vary depending on the signings we do and the units sold by the residential projects.
And how many residential projects?
Yeah. And obviously, if you add to that, it'll add to this.
And number three, you had a third question also.
The third question is a little broadish on this particular part. As we are focusing more on managed hotels, what I understand from the business is that we take X percentage of the revenue pool for managing it. So I just wanted to know that over the years, maybe last couple of years or maybe as we signed more hotels, this X percentage, how it has behaved, as we are able to leverage our brand more and able to get kind of more X percentage of that particular X plus Y something over the period?
No, no, no, no. I think it's driven by market. It's driven by size. In metros, if you get 6%-8% fees, you are doing very well. In smaller hotels, if you get 7%-9%, you are doing fine. If it's a franchise, you're getting 4%-6% of total revenue, 4%-6%, let's say, you're doing very well. When it comes to within a metro, is it airport terminal link location, or is it somewhere 5 km from the airport? Similarly, in city center, is it in the heart of Delhi, in Lutyens' Delhi, like we just did the Ginger in Chanakyapuri?
We got it on the lower spectrum, but we would take it because how do you get a Ginger in Chanakyapuri? It's like what we would call a gift from heaven falling into your lap. So even if it would have gone for another 10% lower fees, it would have gone for another 10% lower. So it all depends. It's driven by brand, by the macro market, and within the macro market, what is the micro market for it, and how much you are willing to do based on your knowledge, what it can do for the brand.
So there is no formula which could work for the entire portfolio and the entire brand scale. It's very different by brand, by geography, and by the opportunity given the size and scale of the project.
Yeah, but there are no secular trends to show that fees are coming down or there is pressure on the fee. I think just to add, we continue to be a preferred partner of choice across owners in India, and that's ensured by the repeat contracts we signed with existing owners.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you.
Mr. Kadam, are you done with the questions?
Yes.
Thank you. The last question comes from the line of Achal Kumar with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Perfect. Thank you for another opportunity. I just had one quick question. So on the loyalty member side, of course, while the members are growing, just wanted to understand, do you have some kind of analysis, or have you looked at how many repeat customers are you getting? And similar to what big airlines track or whatever it is, that my 40% customer stays 10 nights or whatever.
So have you done some kind of analysis or some kind of spending on your know-your-customer basis where you can say that so the repeat customers are increasing and the number of nights they take are also increasing? So I just want to understand any trend, any color on that, please.
Nothing at the moment, Achal, that we have analyzed. I think we will start sharing this as of next quarter. All we can say, broader trend that a large amount of success is also coming from depending on which brand. For Ginger, the loyalty is very important. There's a lot of repeat business, and almost 40% of the enterprise-level revenue of Ginger is loyalty-led. So that is an extremely positive sign.
When you talk about palaces, I mean, it's not really those who go and stay in a palace in Jodhpur or Udaipur or Jaipur. They are not going there because they're getting loyalty points. If you have to stay in Rambagh, you stay in Rambagh. You stay in Lake Palace. You stay in Lake Palace. If over and above you get some loyalty points, it's fine.
But that's not how they're going to decide the next stay because the entry point is so high. When it comes to other brands, I think the good news is it took us since the launch of Taj Inner Circle, which we had, it took us almost 20 years to or 17 years to get to two million. And since we joined with Tata Neu, it has taken us less than four years to have a 4x increase in that base.
And within that, also the active loyalty users, who are your absolute repeat, has increased by the same pace. 5x, actually. It's increased by 5x. And that has increased even 5x, as Mr. Dalwani mentioned. So that part is very positive, and we are very happy with Tata Neu because this kind of know-how of digital and the kind of investment needed we could get, being a founding member of that. It would have been very difficult for us to do all this on our own.
Actually, that's what my objective was to understand that because I think these days, a lot of hotels and airlines, I think they believe that know-your-customer is very important, and that helps them a lot in the repeat business. And then secondly, of course, we had a lot of that. People are taking a lot of short breaks as soon as you have a long weekend. So they are taking repeat holidays.
So it was not like whether I'm staying at a Taj Palace or what, but whether I'm getting a repeat customer, whether people are coming again and again. I mean, so that's what I wanted to understand how that could be.
You're right, Achal. People are coming again and again. It's becoming a very strong leverage for us. And we have 8 million. We expect to get very quickly to 10 million. Once we have that, it becomes the largest program. It's a very strong program on the domestic front. I don't doubt if anyone would come close to that. So let's see how all this evolves. It looks very good and very positive at the moment.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much, and really good luck. Thank you.
Well, thank you, everyone, for joining the call. Thank you for your questions. We look forward to further interactions with you, both offline or through other investor calls. We look forward to the next investor call, which we will have in the month of May this year. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening and a wonderful weekend.
Thank you. On behalf of the Indian Hotels Company Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.