Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Indian Hotels Company Limited earnings conference call for the quarter and year-end date 31 March 2025. 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, 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 touchstone 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 Q4 and FY 2024-2025. We are pleased to inform you that we have continued our record performance for the 12th consecutive quarter on the back of continued growth momentum and key strategic initiatives yielding positive results. I would now like to outline the 10 key highlights of 2024-2025. Number one, strong industry fundamentals.
Driven by strong domestic demand, limited supply addition, and favorable demographics, the hospitality sector continues to be in an upcycle. In FY 2024-2025, demand represented by room nights sold grew 6% as against supply of room nights available, growing only under 3% versus last year for the industry. Strong domestic business travel demand, coupled with mega events like Mahakumbh, international music concerts like Coldplay, and a strong wedding season were the key demand drivers this year.
This trend, ladies and gentlemen, is expected to sustain in the mid to long term, with India continuing to be the fastest-growing large economy and the rise in disposable incomes with the addition of new tourist destinations and evolving traveler behaviors. I come with that to point number two, which is strong financial performance.
On a consolidated basis, IHCL delivered record performance in FY 2025 with 23% revenue growth and 140 basis points margin expansion over the previous financial year, despite consolidating TajSATS as a subsidiary. I repeat, despite consolidating TajSATS as a subsidiary, which has relatively lower margins than the hotel segment. Our consolidated revenue stood at INR 8,565 crore, and our EBITDA margin expanded to 35% in FY 2025. Our reported profit after tax stood at INR 1,908 crore. This number, however, includes an exceptional gain of INR 305 crore.
Excluding the same, the normalized PAT has grown by 27% to INR 1,603 crores. We promised and gave a guidance of double-digit revenue growth at the beginning of the year, and we are happy to share that we comfortably achieved the same despite Q1 being a muted quarter, as we will all recall, due to excessive heat and the code of conduct. IHCL's hotel segment showcased 13% revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion of 220 basis points to 35.9% in FY 2025.
During Q4, the hotel segment continued its strong performance, with revenue growing by 13% to INR 2,206 crores and margin expanding to 38.5% by 230 basis points. Our standalone performance in FY 2025 was also the best ever, with 12% growth in revenue to INR 5,145 crores and EBITDA margin expansion by 260 basis points to 43.9%. Standalone PAT grew 29% to INR 1,413 crores, taking PAT margin to 27.5%.
Number three, double-digit RevPAR growth. As we all know, RevPAR is one of the key metrics for our sector, and IHCL delivered 16% consolidated RevPAR growth in Q4 and 12% for the full year on a domestic like-for-like basis on the back of demand continuing to outpace supply and our asset management initiatives.
This strong performance helped IHCL command a RevPAR premium of 73% at the enterprise level for the year over the Indian industry, thus maintaining the premium positioning in each of the segments we operate in. Our international consolidated portfolio reported double-digit revenue growth driven by strong performance at The Pierre in New York. The US subsidiary turned EBITDA positive on the back of strong management interventions over the last 18 months. Number four, our expansion momentum continues.
We have set a new growth benchmark with 74 signings and 26 openings in FY 2024-2025, taking our portfolio to 381 hotels, with 247 hotels operational as of date. Over 95%, I repeat, 95% of these signings are capital-light, resulting in an industry-leading pipeline of 134 hotels as of date. This was enabled by IHCL's strong brand presence across market segments, coupled with sustained demand buoyancy.
In alignment with our strategic roadmap, Accelerate 2030, a significant share of the signings were in Gateway and Ginger brands, like we had guided, and also reflective of the fast-growing upscale and mid-scale segments in India. This year, we continued to build scale in each of the brands, with Ginger crossing a 100-hotel portfolio and Vivanta reaching the 50-plus hotel mark. That is due to our focus in building critical mass in each of our brands that we have either reimagined or launched new.
Number five, capital-light growth, a key ROCE driver. On the back of our capital-light growth strategy, our management fees in FY 2025 was INR 562 crore, an increase of 20% over the same period last year. This was driven by 11% net unit growth in managed hotel rooms, an increase in RevPAR, technical fees, and new fee streams such as brand fee. Number six, new businesses delivering consistent growth of 40%.
Our new businesses vertical comprising Ginger, Qmin, Ama Stays, and Trails, and now Tree of Life delivered a 40% growth in FY 2025, resulting in a consolidated revenue of INR 602 crore. New business continues to be margin accretive, with a consolidated margin of 37% as against the overall consolidated margin of 35% for the company.
Qminized Ginger, or as we call it, the Qminization of Ginger, continues to be the mainstream of the new business, contributing about 95% of the new business revenue. In the first full year of operation, the flagship Ginger Hotel at Mumbai Airport closed the year with a revenue of INR 97 crore and is expected to comfortably cross the milestone of INR 100-plus crore in this financial year.
Qmin, on the other hand, has expanded to 72 outlets, and in addition to serving as the F&B brand for Ginger Hotels, has also established a presence in Westside stores in Mumbai and Bengaluru through a shop-in-shop format. Furthermore, Qmin has launched operations at Chennai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru airports in partnership with TFS. Ama Stays and Trails reached a milestone of 300-plus bungalows in portfolio, with a second consecutive year of 100-plus villas signed during the year.
Number seven, our continuous focus on asset management and investing for future. We remain committed to investing in our assets and building our capabilities for the future, thus strengthening our competitive advantages. IHCL in FY 2024-2025 spent over INR 1,000 crore towards CapEx, out of which half was used for renovations, routine maintenance, and very importantly, digital initiatives, while the rest half was used towards greenfield projects.
Number eight, Tata Neu. Our Tata Neu loyalty program achieved a milestone of 10 million members with points earning contribution, which is members booking through direct channels, rising by 43% year-on-year to INR 2,200-plus crore. The unwavering loyalty of our customers is visible in our increasing enterprise NPS scores, which stood at 74 for 2024-2025, up from 73 last year. Number nine, Paathya.
Under our ESG-plus framework, Paathya, we marked a significant milestone in FY 2024-2025, with 51 hotels drawing power from clean energy sources, including 13 operating on 100% renewable energy through a mix of on-site installations, off-site sourcing, and strategic power purchase agreements. IHCL standalone, which represents two-thirds of hotel consolidated revenue, now uses 54% energy from renewable sources. Continuing our journey of eliminating single-use plastic, IHCL has installed 64 bottling plants and achieved 50% recycling of water used.
Finally, number ten, we come to the outlook, which we feel is robust for FY 2026 and beyond, and we remain confident of delivering double-digit revenue growth. With strong domestic demand, significant potential in foreign arrivals, or a recovery from a pre-COVID phase of foreign arrivals, and over 70-plus auspicious wedding dates spread evenly throughout the year, we remain confident of delivering double-digit revenue growth in FY 2025-2026.
We have begun the new financial year on a strong note, with April 2025 consolidated revenue growing by approximately 17% over April 2024 and strong business on books for Q1. IHCL has liquidity of INR 3,000 crore, which will not only help us tackle headwinds, if any. I repeat, tackle winds, any kind of headwinds, if any, but will also give us an advantage for any consolidation opportunities that may arise in due course. In summary, we expect to deliver strong growth with sustained margins and continued portfolio growth.
With a target of opening 30-plus hotels in FY 2026, three of which will be on our balance sheet, we are well on track to achieve our committed guidance of double-digit growth. Our focus also remains on scaling our new businesses, evolving our brand scape, and strengthening our competitive advantage with prudent capital allocation and strategic opportunities.
Reflective of the company's sustained financial performance, a dividend of 20% of consolidated PAT amounting to INR 2.25 per share is proposed, subject to shareholders' approval. Finally, thank you so much for your attention, and we will now open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin with a question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on the touchstone phone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only hands while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for taking my question, and congratulations to the team on a great ending to an exceptional year, and also for the growth sustaining in the current quarter as well. My first question is regarding greenfield hotel openings. Puneet and Ankur, you have in the past spoken about how current economic rates are still not viable for greenfield asset developments.
If I look at recent industry reports, more than 50% of hotel signings in calendar year 2024 were in the form of greenfields. How much headroom do you think still exists before we start seeing a lot more conversions in the form of greenfield additions, or rather, at what rate do you think these projects would start looking more viable?
Yeah, hi, Karan. Thanks for the question. I think what we have referred in the past is actually with reference to buying out land from scratch and actually taking approvals and going through the whole process of setting up a greenfield, which is like a pure greenfield asset, which I think we have talked about that in the capital market day.
We have said that at that time, the rates were still not sort of will give you an attractive IRR. I think that to that extent, our thesis has not changed because if you see whatever has been announced, it's either a combination of assets where we have, for example, in our case, the land is coming to us in the form of lease at attractive rates, making the proposition viable, or if it is an existing parcel of land which is being put to use like we did in the case of Ginger Mumbai Airport.
I think as far as if you step back and look at the larger picture, I think even if you look at the first quarter for this financial year, it is looking strong, both as far as ARRs and RevPARs are concerned. It's a good beginning. Of course, we have the benefit of a low base of last year. As such, there doesn't seem to be any direction to say that ARRs have kind of peaked. I think there's good momentum which shows up on the portfolio.
I would just like to add, see, there is no one-size-fits-all. The greenfield opportunities in tier two, tier three cities or new markets are quite interesting. For example, we are going to open this year greenfield in Ekta Nagar, Vivanta and Ginger, both together.
Now, that opportunity is very interesting because of so many visitors going to Statue of Unity every day, but also how that Ekta Nagar is going to evolve based on the entire infrastructure development program that the government has put in place and the importance that the government has given there. From our point of view, that land came at a very compelling proposition, and to build straightforward greenfield assets was at a very kind of a reasonable cost.
We expect very quick payback of projects like this, which will definitely not exceed seven years. If we are lucky, it could be four to five years' time. Such projects we will always pursue in the ethos of Tata Group in terms of both nation building, but they are also very important in deploying our own capital and will keep increasing our return on capital employed. Those are explained.
Thanks. My second question, in slide 26 of the investor presentation, we can see that share of bookings from your own website has increased by 100 basis points to 15% in FY 2025. Could you highlight the kind of savings that accrue to you from change in this mix and what kind of aspiration or plans that you have to increase this share going ahead? If you can also quantify what kind of cost efficiencies do you expect accruing because of that?
This number is a little subdued for last year. This number will go up because we have only relaunched the new website of the Taj brand, and we have also done that with Ama. Almost every six weeks, we will have best-in-class websites getting launched, and we hope to get more and more traffic with the combination of the new digital initiatives as well as Tata Neu initiatives to get more traffic through our website.
Each percentage increase or each room night that we do not have it going through there saves us anything around INR 1,000-INR 1,500 based on the total mix. As the growth is coming more in the upscale and mid-scale brands, you can safely assume around INR 700-INR 800 per booking that is channeled directly through our website.
Yeah. Lastly, on Taj Bandstand , if you can update how the construction is expected to progress in FY 2026. As a follow-up, have you elaborated on the structure for this asset? Will it be entirely on IHCL balance sheet, or will you be looking to nurturing some of your existing partnerships such as with GIC or with an external partner for this asset?
I think the second part is easier to take. Right now, it is being planned to take this in our subsidiary company. Not on standalone, but on a consolidated, it will be 100% owned. As of now, that's the plan. The GIC partnership, as you knew, is a partnership which actually has got over, but we continue to be in dialogue with them if there is anything interesting which we can do together. For now, the plan is to do it on our balance sheet. The second point. I just will incorrect.
The other thing on this one is that one positive development which is actually likely to come up is that as per Taj Lands End, the road going to the sea link is likely to get approved, which will actually get the connectivity to these hotels much, much superior than what it is today. That is obviously something which we are also tracking closely.
In terms of approvals, I think we have made good progress. In the next few weeks, we expect to hear some good news in terms of the CRZ approval, which is the next milestone as far as this asset is concerned. Once that is in place, then I think it is then awaiting one final nod on the height because we already have a height approval till 145 meters, and we have now applied to take it to 165. Once that comes through, I think we are in the position to start construction. I think somewhere latter part of this year, construction can actually start towards the end of the year.
Great. Those are helpful. I'll come back in the queue for any question.
Anyone else who might want to ask the same question? When we discussed this two, three years ago, we said we don't have to build it on our own. With the cash that we have generated and the reserves that we have and the expected cash that we will have, it does not make sense to partner. That's a very luxury position to have.
If need be, we can partner both from within Tata Group or outside Tata Group, like with GIC or anybody else, or with another developer or with Tata Projects. We have all the options in our hand, but as things stand today, given the change in our position from being net debt-free and generating so much cash, it makes absolute sense today to do this on our own.
Yeah. We may de-risk the project, like Mr. Chhatwal is saying. We may de-risk it by getting a turnkey contractor. As far as ownership goes, it probably makes sense to at least start having it under our belt, and then we'll see how it goes.
Thank you, sir. We'll take the next question from the line of Puneet from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Congratulations on another very strong quarter. My first question is, how should we think about CapEx next year? And what are the key areas that you would be spending it on?
We have guided in a press release that firstly, in the context of the CapEx, this year we've spent close to about INR 1,100 crore. This is on a consolidated basis, INR 1,074 crore is the number, which is kind of evenly split between greenfields and renovation and routine and digital. The greenfields also include, by the way, the money we put out for securing the FSI for Bandstand.
I think that was a large portion of that CapEx. Next year, I mean, in this current year, we have a few projects which are going to get to completion. Ekta Nagar, the two projects. We also have Varanasi coming. Varanasi is adding brownfield expansion of 100 keys that will also get done this year, which is being done through our subsidiary.
A few other smaller projects, which includes smaller in terms of outlay, are also going to incur CapEx this year. Overall, I think we have guided towards INR 1,200 crore-plus kind of CapEx for the year, and we feel comfortable about that, given that we are also wanting to sort of scale up assets on the balance sheet as quickly as possible. Of course, there is a physical constraint on how much we can build. Out of the INR 1,200-odd crore, we would think almost there are also large renovations planned in some of our assets, including Taj Palace in Delhi, Fort Aguada in Goa, St. James in the U.K., Taj Kolkata, so Taj Mahal.
Essentially, if you put all together, I would think we would think about 60% to 65% of the CapEx would get spent on renovations and digital investments, and rest would really be going towards greenfield assets. Of course, this number will evolve because it's also a function of approvals, particularly on the greenfield side.
The second question is the April number that you shared about 17% growth. Could you remind us that how much of it is due to base? Because I remember May was very weak last year. Was April also very weak last year that you are seeing this 17% on that? If any, sort of a breakup you could give on what would be like a normalized run rate and what is it because the base is very low or any thoughts around that?
Puneet, since the last several years we speak, we keep talking about this base and growth. It's just the demand is outpacing supply. There are more wedding days, so April, May will be good. Of course, the base, if we look at Q1, was last year exceptionally the weakest quarter. The way to look at it this year would be Q1 plus Q2 combined. The same thing, as we said last year, please look at Q2 and Q1 together.
Because we had a low base in Q1, the sector should definitely do a minimum of double-digit growth. The question is at what level? 12, 14, 15, 17, 19? As things stand today, year to date, which means four days of May and 30 days of April, we are definitely at 17% plus, but that's a very high number. If it stays like this, we are very happy.
Things do not stay like that always, as you know. I think anything which is north of 13-14% is a very healthy number because of the business on the books. In the current environment, a lot of people are not planning that far to book. Given what happened in the north, there will be a bit of this which will create a pent-up demand again for Q2 if there were some misses in Q1.
The way it has started, any of that possible miss would be more than compensated with the performance that we have seen in the first or will see in the first 40-45 days of this financial year.
Great. team. No, that is helpful. Thank you.
I mean, also to add, the growth on last year, April, was not that subdued. I mean, really, the quarter became subdued as we got into May and June. April actually was reasonably, it wasn't as good as this April, but was a reasonably high single-digit or early double-digit kind of a number, if I recall correctly.
Just squeezing one more question on the foreign tourist arrival. Pre-pandemic, this used to be always trending up, was a good profit margin business also. I do understand in the near term we have a little bit of border uncertainty, so it could impact tourists adversely. Is there anything that the industry or the government is doing collectively to take this number much higher? In fact, the slide that you talk about, BSP as in India, lower than some of the standalone cities globally. Anything that you see in the longer run that the government and the industry is collectively doing to really push this number up?
There are two ways to look at this, Puneet. Technically, now in the last few months, the number of arrivals has gone up, but just the terminology FTA is not appropriate. That is why when I was giving my 10 points, I called it foreign arrivals, and I missed that T. I took out that T. Because as India gains more and more relevance and importance as being the fifth largest economy and progressing towards third largest, there is more and more business interest that is getting generated from outside of India.
More and more people, after G20, are still traveling. It is not that G20 happened once and nobody came back. People are coming. The foreign companies that had business established, and they give you an example of Siemens or Bosch or whatever, these are German groups, or Bayer, they're all growing in size, and more and more of their people from their corporate offices from Germany are coming in.
This is a trend you will see in auto sector. You will see that in the global capability centers. Capability centers. Capability centers that are being built. That's one way to look at it, that that part is happening. When it comes to the tourism part, we have not seen us going back to what it used to be pre-COVID.
What we have done is we committed to Indian Association of Tour Operators at their annual business conference last year, and we have put in, as Indian Hotels committed, INR 25 crore to be spent over three years in helping promote India outside. We have done that at the WTM in London, most recently last week at the ATM in Dubai, and in March at the ITB in Berlin by hosting the India Day.
We will keep doing these activities. We have made also for travel agents many other terms favorable by changing their cancellation policy, by including breakfast in the rate component, etc., so that our own community is a bit more incentivized to bring in the business. Because we are doing it, I am sure others will also follow.
At the same time, through the various other organizations like CII or HAI or FHRAI or FAITH, which is the apex body, and individual associations, everybody is doing their bit to lobby with the government to get some international marketing budget so that we can promote this wonderful culturally diverse destination to build on the soft power of Brand India.
Okay.
We'll take the next question from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. So I have seen this TajSATS margin in this quarter is lower. What are the key reasons for that?
Sumant, I think we put a note also explaining that basically the new contract which they have signed in some of the facilities, the way they are accounting for levy exchange as per the new contract. Earlier, it was not a P&L item.
Now the levy flows through the revenue and also through the cost. Essentially, that impacts the margin per se because firstly, it increases your revenue without changing your EBITDA. Also, in some of the facilities, there is a levy on levy. Essentially, if you're part of the revenue, you have to pay levy on that as well. I think both of these factors actually have impacted the margin.
If it was not for that, for example, this quarter, the margin would have been actually lower by only 0.5%. That also is explained because there was a one-off in their P&L last year. If you were to knock off that one-off, which we haven't talked about it yet, it would actually be in a positive quarter for them.
Overall, if you look at how we are looking at their numbers, the next year, FY 2026, we expect that because of this, there could be a 1% impact on the margin. This will also help in growth in the revenues because this levy now gets added to the revenue itself. If they were doing 13-14%, they could do an additional 3-5% because of the levy now going through the P&L.
Considering current scenario in international market, do you think the U.S. and U.K. business is likely to see a challenging year for these two subsidiaries, FY 2026?
No. On the contrary, we feel that see, we have only two properties in the U.S. San Francisco went through two very bad financial or two and a half very bad years. Since January, San Francisco is slowly coming back as it used to be.
On the occupancy, it has reached the level where it was. On the rates, it is increasing by leaps and bounds. We do believe that San Francisco will be a big positive surprise this year. April was extraordinarily good for San Francisco, but that changes in that city based on the big events that they get. In New York, our size of the hotels is not that big.
These two hotels put together are close to 300 rooms. Our efforts in New York, as I said, are beginning to pay off. For the first time, Pierre was EBITDA positive, and we think this journey will continue in a positive way also this year.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sir, in April month, you were talking about 17% growth.
Yes.
Which city has driven the growth?
It is actually across the board. Across the board. Yeah. Domestic and international. Actually, even international has done well, mid to high teens across the board. I do not think it is a specific city which has sort of given a growth. I mean, the big cities, the metro cities continue to fire, which was expected, and which is Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore. Even markets like Hyderabad, Rajasthan have done quite well.
The first four days of May have also been very good because the commercial capital, Mumbai, had the Uncertain , and Delhi had some heads of state visit. Fortunately for us, one of them we hosted.
Majorly, ARR driven?
Very strong ARR driven.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Sumanth.
Thank you. We will take the next question from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir. Congrats for the event. My first question is on city-wise RevPAR growth. You have stopped giving that data, but in terms of tourist cities versus business cities, so overall 15% RevPAR growth in the quarter, how does it sort of show up in different cities?
Prateek, most of the cities are very strong. The only place which is a little bit under pressure or flat is Goa. It is still having the highest rates or the highest RevPAR in the country, at least for us. If I was to take the growth in Q4 in Mumbai, it was 14%. Delhi NCR was 27%. Bengaluru was 28%. Chennai was 12%. Rajasthan was also 12%. Hyderabad 14%. Kolkata 26%. Some of these things, and also Kerala 16%. It also depends what is the base you are coming from. In Goa, the base was INR 18,000 for us. Now, Rajasthan was INR 23,800. Hyderabad was also INR 19,800.
Delhi was only 11,598, and it went to 14,700. That is how we would like to look at it because Goa during COVID and post-COVID was still at a very high level. We are very pleased with the performance of all these Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore. All these places, we have very strong presence. The only city that we miss for us with strong company-owned presence is Pune, which is also going strong. It is going very strong, the Pune market.
You also highlighted on some new people or travelers are generally a bit cautious on booking in near-term, immediate-term kind of. How is this general to understand how has this mix evolved from pre-COVID, people wanting to book in one month or three months or six months in terms of industry trend or yourself?
Nothing. The visibility, the booking window is becoming shorter and shorter. More and more people that travel do not make all these plans so much in advance, except for the usual. When you have school holidays and you have the summer vacation, the Christmas, if you take that out, the rest of the extended weekends, etc., are just planned maybe sometimes even 24 hours in advance or 12 hours in advance.
This is what we have highlighted since the last 10 quarters, that when people had to drive themselves during COVID, they got used to a different kind of holiday with the family. Many of them never went back to the old way of using other mediums or other help to drive. They would just get into the car and drive themselves. That is a lot. The booking window, except for the main holiday season, is becoming shorter and shorter.
One last question on demand trend again, regarding this global tariff, is there something which you emphasize on against foreign tourists or overall business sentiment?
Fortunately, nothing comes to my mind on how this sector could be impacted with tariffs. At the moment, I don't know what one could do. Increase what GST or that they cannot. That influence cannot come from overseas. Also, it's like. No, I meant on business sentiment.
Yeah.
In fact, the business sentiment, it could help India because one of the beneficiaries of the tariff regime is that India has got relatively lower tariffs than neighbors. If those continue to hold, you could see more visits coming into India for doing more of sort of outsourcing from here. I think that, in a way, not a negative, but definitely could be a positive also.
Actually, to the other question which was Binay has put in, or see, this could be a great opportunity to channel some of the business from Europe instead of going to the US to get them to India. The flying time is not any different. It's the same.
Yeah.
Sure, sir. I'll send it back to Prateek. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumit Sinha from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much. A couple of questions here. First was in one of your slides where you show demand supply by city, it showed Delhi going into negative. Now, did that happen at the beginning of the year, or is that something a new development?
Delhi going into negative supply. Supply.
Yeah. This is more statistical. I think this is STR data. We checked it with them, but it's not necessarily representative of the trend. Essentially, this is probably what has happened. If you see the supply going negative, some hotels were not available.
Effectively, the rooms that are available have gone down statistically. In general, if you see across the board, supply is growing in the region of 2.5%-3%. I think that's what the trend we kind of picked up. I would not really read too much into the -1.2% number here, but that's more of a statistical number. Overall, I think the supply is in that zone which you mentioned earlier.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. The second is in terms of if you look at the interplay between ARR and occupancy, can you talk about what the incremental margins are on both these kind of drivers, ARR and occupancy?
See, if the business comes to rate increase, the flow-through is very high. It could be 80%, 90%, or even 100%. Depends on what rates we are talking about. Occupancy driven, you'll still have the operating cost per room. Finding the right balance and the right mix is a good way forward. We see that the willingness of the people to pay for premiumization in India has significantly increased in the last two, three years.
If previously we spoke about a few hundred thousand people, today you can easily say more than a million people in India are willing to pay for quality, are willing to pay for experiences, and are willing to take more holidays or spend on discretionary expenses like hotels and restaurants. As an example, it was unthinkable that you could have smaller restaurants.
It happened in the West, but not in India so much, with 10, 12 seaters sold out for three months before you get a table or a booking. That too, it's not sure because if you are not exactly filling up the restaurant, maybe it's difficult. The kind of spend that you have in one evening out there in such places. These are new trends that are emerging and something we as a sector should also observe closely to see if that's what some of our places should look like in our hotels in light of our asset management initiatives.
Got it. That makes sense. Final question. If you look at your slide number 38 where you talk about the opening schedule of the signed pipeline, have you adjusted that number downward? Looks like it's gone down by like 10% or so for 2026 and 2027.
Downward? We give the guidance on pipeline every quarter. Like we say, also as a disclaimer at the bottom thing, because a lot of this is a function of approvals, etc., for the hotels to come up. When we give guidance for what will open in 2026 and 2027, for example, on this stage, it is the best available estimate we have as on date.
It is basically factoring in what we know as to what is going to happen with the partners, particularly the managed hotels and also our own hotels. I think this, in a way, kind of talks about the basic concept of demand supply being in deficit because it is very hard to put a timeline on saying when will this new supply come in. In a way, this does get updated every quarter.
You have a point. Actually, we will do a better job next time on this. This is not right representation the way you have asked the question. See, this, for example, does not include anything which is a conversion. A conversion may come in in June and may go online like we have now two properties which we have opened in Bangaram, totaling 112 rooms. They never hit the pipeline.
They come in, and then they are straight away going to open. Like we had the Claridges. Claridges we signed, we announced, and four weeks later, we opened. A lot of this pipeline, because of governance reasons, we give exactly what is there which is signed, sealed, legally valid in doing these projections.
This number does not include the possible delays where a project may get stuck, but also does not include many conversions like a Tree of Life, existing portfolio that came to us. It was not a lot of rooms, but it came, and we took it over. Similarly, there may be other consolidation, mergers, acquisition opportunities.
We cannot list them here because they may not even be in negotiations. There may be no negotiations at this point of time. We have to extrapolate based on what we know and what all could happen, including based on our past experience of how many conversions that you get to the right number.
Got it. If I can just sneak in one more. Previously, you used to give the pipeline number beyond 2027 as well, but it is not there. How should we kind of put that in our model?
I think the total pipeline is there, which is a total signed pipeline. I think effectively, if you see, we have got roughly about 3,000-3,500 keys opening in the next two years if you look at the numbers which we have put out, not factoring any potential conversions which might happen. This is essentially, between the 15,000 would get absorbed by FY30 or FY31 kind of a number, right, if you think about it.
Got it. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amol from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is.
Your audio is too low. Can you please increase the volume?
Is it better now?
Yes. Yes. Sure.
Yeah. Hi. Sorry. My first question was about your FY2030 target, which you gave when you're expecting revenue to double by FY2030. On that, I just want to understand how much of the growth you think will come from the room addition and how much from the other KPIs, the other factors, including RevPAR and all. Do you think most of the growth will be front-loaded? I mean, you already reported 23% growth in revenue this year, while the overall growth is like 11.5% CAGR. Do you think most of the growth will be front-loaded?
Amol, are you asking us to increase the guidance for the revenue? Yeah. Remember your question from Capital Market Day. We will be doing what is to be done, but your question so far is interesting. Your double-digit growth, let's say 10% per annum for the next four, five years, could be the CAGR that will come. In one year, it might be 14. Another year might be 8, or then it's 12, and then it's 11. These things happen in a marketplace, right? It will remain strong.
Why it will remain strong is it's also coming in new markets which has limited supply or will not get so many additions to supply. If you looked at our presentation, we have also doubled the number of places we are present in terms of our footprint. That's one. The second will come through, we said, our asset management initiatives. Third comes through new hotels. That is how we keep achieving that high number despite our base being so high. Look at our base in Jai Mahal Palace or in Falaknumaa.
It's a very high base. On that high base, to say that we'll keep having that growth in perpetuity, that means a lot of things in India and in the world have to keep working very positively. What makes us so confident of achieving that number is our very strong, not like-for-like growth with 130-plus hotels in pipeline, what we know today, and more will keep getting added.
We are very well positioned to achieve the guidance that we have given. In that guidance, Amol, if you remember, we always say, "We promise, we deliver, and ideally, we keep delivering a little bit more than what we have promised."
I agree on that. I agree on that part. Thanks. My second question was about the rising competition. Obviously, in any industry, the demand is strong, and especially inside nuclear joining. Recently, I think IHG announced to open additional 30,000 rooms by 2030 along with Accor. If you see, GIC is taking a bit of active part. They've got 35% stake in Samhi in five hotels, and they're spending almost INR 1,000 crore there.
How do you see the competition rising? I mean, do you think the industry is still expecting this demand versus supply growth or the gap between demand and supply to continue for four-five years, or do you think things could change? How do you see the industry structure actually?
There will be, as India gains in importance as a strong economy, more and more brands and organizations would want to have presence in India and a strong presence. I think all companies, as far as I can see, have made big plans.
The benefit we have is we embarked on this journey some time ago. Just given our signings of 74 contracts last year has given us a very big boost and an edge. Given that we are today net debt-free, having a gross cash of INR 3,000 crore and generating cash as we speak, positions us very well to take advantage of any other inorganic opportunities that might come.
What others are doing, that is their entitlement to do, but I can only say that we as management, this is what our thinking has been. Also, very important that we are not in the business of counting rooms only. We have certain legacy. We have certain commitment through our businesses to the nation, and we will keep doing what we think is right and not follow blindly some other thing.
Although the consequence of all our growth is also that it is increasing our footprint, the number of rooms, the number of hotels, but that is not our sole objective. We are going to go for profitable and sustainable value creation.
Right. Fair enough. My last question was about the cost efficiency. Obviously, keep rising your room inventory, keep rising, and then definitely you'll have cost efficiency playing around. Going back to one of the previous questions around the cost efficiency, how do you see the cost efficiency could play? I mean, according to your plan, do you think 1%, do you think half %, do you think 2% the cost efficiency could continue to play?
When we talk about the cost efficiency, especially particular to this quarter, Q2, I mean, sorry, going into Q1 with the lower oil price, what kind of tailwinds do you expect you have with the margin in the next quarter?
Yeah. I think without getting specific on margin for the quarter, I think if you go back to the quarterly history of our FY 2025, you will see that even in quarter one, which was the lowest quarter for us in terms of revenue growth, we managed to sort of tweak out efficiencies and get our EBITDA actually growing at close to 10%-11% versus the revenue growth of 6%. I think the endeavor here is to keep a check on cost. There are puts and takes on the cost side, as we've expressed in the past, as we enhance our brand scale.
There will obviously be some investments we have to put back on promoting the brands. Also, as we move towards the more sort of digital investments, which we keep doing to enhance our competitiveness, a lot of that cost now goes through the P&L just because the nature of the investment has not changed from CapEx to OpEx.
I think there are things which kind of take away from margin but also create long-term value. Also, the ones which will add to the margin today is really the leverage we continue to get, given that a lot of the growth is coming through our expansion, and that helps us in passing through any normal inflation.
In any upcycle, we have seen that our ability to pass on for the sector to pass on inflation and maybe comfortably pass on inflation, maybe 1-2% over that, continues to be there. Like I said, every cycle is different. There will always be challenges, and there will always be puts and takes. Overall, we feel comfortable about the direction we are on. In terms of margin, there is a positive bias which we continue to hold for this year as well.
Okay. Thanks. Thank you. I'll come back in the queue.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Abhay Khaitan from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My question is specifically on Ginger brand. In the slides, we can see that they have seen a RevPAR growth of 8% for FY25. Now, with the new initiatives on Ginger and positioning it as a Lean Luxe model now, would it be fair to expect ARR growth for this segment to be higher compared to other brands, or do you think that it is still some time away?
Ginger is actually very well positioned in the mid-scale segment. This is a segment which is relatively more price sensitive as compared to, let's say, the luxury and the upscale segment. Actually, getting a 10% and an 8% kind of growth rate on RevPAR is actually very commendable for this segment because relatively the growth rate in this segment is lower compared to the overall hotel segment, especially the luxury end of the market.
What will happen in the case of Ginger is that there is completion of the Lean Luxe program, which will actually get done in this year, which means almost the entire inventory will be fully renovated in terms of getting it to a Lean Luxe position, which will help us in pushing the ARR. This is actually a great segment or a great, the brand is very well positioned to target not only consumers but also corporate.
Where the price sensitivity is a little bit more, but they have a long, strong preference for them to come under the Ginger brand because then they become part of the IHCL network because it not only opens up them to stay in the Ginger hotel, but next time the person could go and stay in a Vivanta or a Taj.
Yeah. Got it. Thanks for this. The second question is on the slide 26, where I mentioned the split of travelers, where you have mentioned 55% of demand is coming from transient. Can you throw some light on how much of this transient would be business travelers and how much would it be leisure travelers?
It's very hard to give that breakup, but generally, transient are people who are basically where we have non-negotiated rates. These essentially could be smaller corporates as well, but this would basically be people with whom we don't have a negotiated contract.
I think that's how we measure that segment. The pricing power is maximum in that segment, and therefore, we feel very comfortable with the 50-55% share which we have. This is something which has actually been there for quite some time. It's not a new development. This would largely, I would think, be retail, but we do not really have a split of our retail and corporate. We do not actually have that separately.
Got it. Thank you. That is awesome.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prashant Biyani from Elara Capital . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Mr. Dalwani, how much of the 60-65% renovation cost of INR 1,200 crore can pass through P&L?
No, all that is renovation CapEx. It will all get capitalized. It will come to the P&L in the form of depreciation as and when it is completed. Obviously, first, it will get spent and then get capitalized.
Sir, just a related question on margin. If most of the renovations is going through the balance sheet, then shouldn't a mid-single-digit or a low double-digit ARR increase lead us to a healthy 150 to 200 basis points margin expansion?
Yeah. Like I said, not getting into specific guidance on margin, but I mean, I've answered this question in the past. I'll just repeat that there are puts and takes on the margin side. As the year has just started, we'll just see how the quarter goes. Given that we've just sort of seen good momentum first quarter, we're hopeful that the positive momentum, which we've seen on the four quarters, continues.
There is, as mentioned earlier in the call, I guess, there's no pressure, as such, on rates, but obviously, one has to be watchful about the increasing competition and keeping in mind if there's any impact of the global situation. As of now, for the month of April and early May, we haven't seen anything come through, but we're just watching that.
Okay, sir. That's it from my side. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be the last question for today, which is from the line of Aliasgar Shakir from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. You have partly answered my question. The question is on the ARR. You made a comment, sir, that Goa this year was slightly soft because of the high base. In that context, a couple of questions.
One is, I mean, which are the regions or do you see many of the regions, given that last two years have taken sharp ARRs, would be sitting on high ARRs, and probably that could have some factor because of which RevPAR could be kind of at a peak level. The second thing is that you also mentioned that you are premiumizing a lot of your properties. So how much of this ARR could be because of upgrades and how much it could be entirely just price increases?
I think on RevPARs across the cities, I think, like was mentioned, even for this year, it's been a pretty secular growth across the cities, especially the big cities. Goa, for us, is on a consolidated basis, is effectively a very small number. It does not impact the overall RevPAR numbers for us, which continues to be very healthy.
I mean, if I look at the April RevPAR, it's a comfortable mid-teens kind of a number. I think, in general, in a portfolio which has close to 250 operating hotels, you will always have some city doing better and some city doing a little weaker. I think that's the way the diversification also helps us.
As far as your other point of concern, which is how much is it on account of asset management, that's, again, difficult to answer, but one way to think about it is the RevPAR premium we enjoy in the market. If you try to look at the absolute RevPAR premium, it is very high. It's about 70%. Not saying that a large portion is because of our asset management, but it's a combination of a lot of things.
The asset management, also the location of the hotel, the brand name itself, the loyalty program, and the entire set of corporate advantages which are out there which actually attract people to come to our hotel. Hard to split this into saying that this is pure industry versus pure our corporate advantage, but all of this kind of goes together to bring us to that kind of number.
Very good. Got it, sir. Got it, sir. This is very useful.
With that, last question. I would like to thank everyone who participated in the call today. Thank you for your support. We look forward to interacting with you with the Q2 results. Any offline questions anyone may have, please feel free to contact us or any member of our team. Thank you, everyone, and have a wonderful evening.
Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Indian Hotels Company Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.