Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to The Indian Hotels Company Limited Earnings conference call for the quarter and fiscal year ending 31st March 2026. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and 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, thank you for joining our Conference Call for Q4 and FY 2025, 2026. We are pleased to inform you that we have continued our record performance for the sixteenth consecutive quarter, driven by sustained strength in our core business while building scale with profitability. Let me start with why we think this was an important year, the FY 2026. We also call it the year of strengthening the foundation. It was an important milestone year for IHCL, where we built the foundation for the next phase of growth, strengthening our brandscape, enhancing resilience, scaling our platforms, and investing in capabilities that will make IHCL future-ready. Despite a year marked by multiple macroeconomic headwinds, like geopolitical conflicts and weather-related disruptions, IHCL continued to deliver strong performance with consistency and discipline.
This reflects the structural strength of our business model and the agility of our teams across markets. Over the last year, we have focused on building three defining attributes of the IHCL ecosystem. Number one, the word which I've just used often at the beginning of my speech, that is resilience through a diversified portfolio across segments, markets, and business models, allowing us to deliver consistently across cycles. I call it also resilience by brand, by contract type, and by geography. Number two is scale through accelerated portfolio expansion, strategic acquisitions, and strengthening, most important, strengthening our management-led growth platform or capital-light growth. Number three, future readiness by investing in new brands, digital capabilities, refreshed assets, and emerging hospitality formats that position us for long-term relevance.
Together, these three pillars have laid a strong and enduring foundation, one that now allows us to transition confidently into our next phase of sustainable growth at scale. Now we should move to what built this foundation. Our business today is structurally more diversified with leadership positions across both luxury and mid-scale segments. Our capital-light strategy continues to be a defining competitive advantage with 68% of our operating portfolio and 93% of our pipeline under managed or asset-light formats. This enables disciplined expansion with superior returns. Even as we invested meaningfully for future growth, we delivered EBITDA margin of 35%, reflecting operating discipline and structural efficiency. Our balance sheet remains exceptionally strong with gross liquidity of over INR 4,300 crores, giving us significant flexibility to pursue both organic and suitable inorganic growth opportunities.
Over the last three years, we have invested over INR 2,500 crores in capital expenditure to strengthen our iconic assets and enhance strategic capabilities. As we have mentioned over the last several years, asset management was, is, and remains a key focus area for the asset-heavy part of our portfolio. Even going forward, we will continue to invest INR 1,000-1,200 crores annually to strengthen our existing competitive advantages and at the same time build new ones. Alongside this, we deployed over INR 500 crores across 4 strategic acquisitions, expanding our presence into high-growth adjacencies and strengthening future revenue streams. Importantly, our newer and emerging brands are now reaching meaningful scale and are well-positioned to increase their contribution to enterprise revenues from the current 10%.
Taken together, these actions have created a business that is not only resilient in the present, but increasingly scalable and future-ready for the opportunities ahead. What are the future-ready building blocks in place? That's my point number three. Before we move into detailed performance review, it is important to highlight the structural building blocks that position IHCL for sustainable long-term growth. Over the last few years, we have consciously built a diversified and resilient ecosystem, one that combines scale, brand strength, operational excellence, and institutional capability. Let me start with diversified brandscape. Today, IHCL has one of the most comprehensive hospitality brand portfolios in the country, spanning luxury, upper upscale, mid scale, and emerging lifestyle segments. This multi-brand architecture allows us to participate across consumer segments, travel locations, and price points. Number two, portfolio, and pipeline.
With over 630 hotels, 64,000-plus keys in the portfolio, we continue to scale with discipline through a strong mix of managed, leased, and owned assets, creating long-term visibility with capital efficiency. Along with our 375-plus amã Villas, amã, which is our home stay brand, our portfolio has now crossed the milestone of 1,000 units when combined with 630-plus hotels portfolio. As mentioned earlier, our pipeline remains strong at 31,000-plus keys and continues to be largely capital light. Number three, our people, and our culture. Hospitality at its core remains a people-led business. Our greatest strength lies in our 50,000-plus associates who bring excellence to life every day through trust, awareness, and joy. TAJ, or what we proudly call Tajness, consistently delivering exceptional experiences across brands and markets.
The trust, awareness, and joy is a common culture and core values that we have put to all brands. We don't use anywhere by TAJ or a bit of TAJ as a prefix or suffix in any of the brands, because we do believe core values is what drives your business, which drives your resilience and which drives profitability. Number four, owners, and partners. Over the years, we have built deep and trusted relationships with owners and stakeholders across the ecosystem. Our ability to create win-win value propositions through scalable operating models continues to drive strong signings momentum and long-term partnerships. We have now 40-plus owners who have trusted us with more than one asset in our 630 hotel portfolio. Number five, customer, and loyalty.
We continue to strengthen guest engagement through our expanding loyalty ecosystem, digital platforms, and partnerships enabling deeper customer connect, higher repeat business, and improved customer value proposition. Finally, enterprise resilience. We have significantly strengthened institutional capabilities across governance, digital infrastructure, risk management, and operational processes, creating a more agile, resilient, and future-ready organization. Collectively, these building blocks provide the foundation for sustained growth, stronger margins, and long-term value creation. Now is the time to come to Q4 performance highlights. Let me now begin with Q4 performance highlights. On a consolidated basis, revenue for Q4 25/26 grew 14% year-on-year to INR 2,845 crores. EBITDA grew 15% year-on-year to INR 1,052 crores, yielding EBITDA margin of 37%. Our consolidated PAT before exceptional items grew 14% year-on-year to INR 600 crores.
Our standalone performance in Q4 was also the best ever with industry-leading 12% growth in RevPAR. This resulted in overall revenue growing to INR 1,721 crores and a EBITDA margin expansion by 160 basis points to 49.5%. Standalone PAT before exceptional items grew 15% to INR 569 crores, taking PAT margin to 33.1%. Other parts of our performance highlights for FY 2026 is that on a consolidated basis, revenue for 2025/2026 grew 16% year-on-year to INR 9,971 crores. EBITDA grew 16% year-on-year to INR 3,477 crores, yielding EBITDA margin of 34.9%. For the first time ever, we crossed milestone of INR 2,000+ crores in profit after tax.
On a standalone basis, revenue grew 10% year-on-year to INR 5,640 crores. EBITDA grew 13% year-on-year to INR 2,543 crores, yielding EBITDA margin of 45.1%, an expansion of 120 basis points year-on-year. Standalone PAT grew 14% to INR 1,632 crores, taking PAT margin to 29%. What is important is to step back and reflect on our growth journey over the past four years. We have delivered a double-digit CAGR across revenue, EBITDA, and PAT on both a consolidated and standalone basis. This underscores the consistency, quality, and the structural strength of our business model. Let me move on to the new businesses which are at an inflection point.
Our new businesses vertical comprising Ginger, Qmin, amã Stays & Trails, and Tree of Life delivered 25% growth in FY 2026. This resulted in a consolidated revenue of INR 753 crores. Over the past four years, the new businesses vertical has delivered a CAGR of 31% growth, reflecting the strong momentum and successful scaling of our high-growth brands. The flagship Ginger Mumbai, Airport crossed the milestone of INR 100+ crores in revenue for the first time while delivering an industry-leading EBITDA margin of 56%. Qmin expanded its footprint to 100+ outlets, while amã crossed the milestone of 375 bungalows in its portfolio with 85 villas signed during the year. Qmin also on a GMV has crossed almost INR 200 crores last year. We have never left our focus on asset management and investment.
On the contrary, we remain committed to investing in our assets and building our capabilities for the future, thus strengthening our competitive advantages. IHCL in FY 2025, 2026 spent over INR 1,000 crores towards CapEx, out of which around INR 650 crores was used for renovations, routine maintenance and digital initiatives, while the rest half was used towards greenfield projects. Coming on to dividend payout, our strong, and consistent financial performance has enabled us to continue enhancing shareholder returns while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation. Reflective of this sustained performance, the board has proposed a dividend equivalent to 25% of consolidated PAT amounting to INR 3.25 per equity share, subject to shareholders' approval.
This includes a one-time special dividend of INR 0.50 per share to commemorate IHCL's landmark 125th AGM, as well as the exceptional gains realized during the year. The proposed dividend of INR 3.25 per share represents an increase of approximately 44% over the dividend of INR 2.25 per share declared in FY 2024, 2025. More importantly, over the last four years, IHCL has delivered a dividend CAGR of 48%, reflecting both the strength of our cash generation capabilities and our commitment to delivering long-term value to shareholders. As we move now to FY 2027, we do so with immense confidence and strong momentum. The foundations built over the past few years position IHCL well for the next phase of accelerated growth. In conclusion, in FY 2027, we expect 60-plus hotel openings across brands and geographies.
Number two, our recent acquisitions are expected to contribute over INR 250 crores in incremental revenue. Number three, Ginger, and the mid-scale platform continue to strengthen our leadership position in a structurally under-penetrated segment. As I mentioned on a few occasions, we expect the Ginger brand itself to have a total portfolio of 250 hotels either under development or in operation at the end of FY 2027. Number four, renovated inventory across key assets is expected to create further upside through improved pricing power and guest experience. Finally, industry fundamentals also remain favorable, supported by resilient domestic demand and limited incremental supply across key markets. On the outlook, as we look ahead to FY 2027 and beyond, we remain confident of delivering double-digit revenue growth with sustained margins, strong cash generation and improved quality of earnings.
Our ambition is not only to grow larger, but to build one of the most admired and future-ready hospitality ecosystems around the globe. With strong foundations in place, disciplined execution and a clear strategic direction, IHCL is well positioned to continue creating long-term value for all stakeholders. Thank you very much for listening, and we will now be happy to take your questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their touch-tone phone. 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, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Your first question comes from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Can you talk on the current scenario how the city, the city-wide impact or any benefit of say lowering outbound? How is the scenario in for the hospitality industry?
Sumant, just help me clarify. You mean because of the West Asian crisis, or you mean because of the comments made by some leadership, or by the Prime Minister? I can't follow because we are having business as usual. Dubai is down, Maldives is down, London is okay, and domestic is very strong. It's a very simple answer. Are you there, Sumant?
What about the current scenario, in the month of April and in the current month? How is the business considering current scenario?
The business was a bit sluggish. I would say March was a difficult month. Beginning of April was difficult. Middle of April came the stability. Since then, we are seeing strong growth. You know, there is months and weeks. I think it's important to state what we just said in terms of our outlook. We remain fairly confident that we will again deliver double-digit growth between 12%-14% in the FY 2027 fiscal. Should everything subside in West Asian crisis, you could expect more the figures in line with what we had in the last financial year, which was not easy either. We started with Pahalgam in April, Sindoor in May, airline accident in June. You know, you can go on and on and finish the year with the West Asian crisis.
I don't see any reason, especially in light of our not like for like growth, that we should be able to do double-digit top-line growth.
When we see the subsidiary performance, consol minus standalone overall operating level, we have seen a subdued performance. Which geography has done better, say, St. James or U.S.? How is the performance in this quarter?
Sumant. Hi, Ankur here. You're talking about Q4? Hello, Suman?
I think.
Q4.
Yeah. Sumant, I think Q4 kind of reflective of the full year trends which you saw on the slide we put out. There was definitely impact after the West Asia conflict in the global market. We did see some loss of revenues in, you know, some of our hotels internationally, including London. That's what we try to summarize also on the slide on impact of the West Asia conflict, about INR 40 crores-INR 50 crores of revenue on the consolidated basis. Almost close to INR 100 crores on an enterprise basis, which got impacted because of cancellation and rescheduling of events, you know, which were kind of last-minute cancellation which came through. I think the good thing about this is that domestic has been pretty resilient.
Even in the month of April, domestic has actually done quite well. It's been pacing quite well, keeping in mind that, you know, international travel is kind of subdued right now. Let's just see how the quarter goes. Overall, you know, we think double-digit growth should be possible on the lines which was just guided by Puneet Chhatwal.
Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Shaleen Kumar from UBS India. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes. Hi, Shaleen.
Thank you. You know, when I was looking at your presentation and I was looking for the city by performance for FY 2026, I think there's a big variation we can see, like 5%-15% kind of a growth, right? That's the kind of variation in FY 2026. You know, is there any market where you're looking that the trend will change? For instance, Mumbai or Goa, you're looking that, you know, your base is favorable or, you know, if something else is happening where those cities can help you achieve, you know, your double-digit growth guidance. That's question number one.
Good, good question, Shaleen. I think half of it you answered. Mumbai, the base is very high, it's difficult to get to 15% growth. Goa, we have seen almost in the month of April, north of 25% growth in all of our hotels. Some have gone to 30 and beyond. Averaging at 25. Goa is definitely back since the last few months, March, and April, and the trend is not changing. Kerala could improve and Chennai could also improve. Delhi had a very good year last year. Delhi and Mumbai have a high base.
Okay. Actually, Suman, I thought that you will say Mumbai because, I think there was some renovation happening, right? I thought that, Mumbai.
Yes, you're right. In President we had renovations, President will show an exceptional gain. You know, Lands End has been operating consistently at 90%+ occupancy, only rates can go up. We have, on a very high base, if you do high single digit is good. If you do 6%, 7%, 8% on a INR 20,000 RevPAR is as good as you do 15% on a INR 10,000 RevPAR.
Yeah. There is actually a fundamental question, Suman, that why, like, why are you operating at 90%? I know, like, this is a very basic question, a wise question, but I'm asking, like, why don't we see that let's increase the rate by more and maybe operate at, let's say, 80%-85%? Do you think no, 90% is better than keeping the rate where they are? I mean, I'm asking that even 90% you have a lot of pricing power, isn't it?
I don't disagree with you, but we prefer to do both, increase the rate also and the occupancy also. That's what we have done. If you go back four, five years back or even six, seven, if you look at the rates or the RevPAR together, it's more than doubled in our main hotels in Mumbai.
We also need that because, you know, in India you make money on food and beverage, and more of the people staying in hotels eat in hotels. I think that's also important to find the right balance. Given my personal experience of the West, you look more at only rate and occupancy because F&B is not profit-making in most of the Western parts. That's a different way of looking at it.
No. No. Fair enough, sir. Just one last question on your guidance. Let's if we work with even 12%, you know, for let's say you were able to target 12% in FY 2027, how should one think about breaking that growth? I mean, how should I think about RevPAR or ARR plus occupancy, plus the new asset contribution, plus anything else? Is there a, you know, possibility to give a broad breakup? Even a range is fine. You know, it will help us to think and conceptualize, like, what kind of a growth we are looking at on various parameters.
See, if we take your example of 12%, it would be fair to say that 4% or to 5% will come from new businesses and not like-for-like growth. We'll be opening 60 hotels, and then we have Atmantan and all these new businesses that we have added. If only 7 is left to come from the rest, it would be fair to say, you know, occupancy's are at a very high level, so you could have most of the growth coming, which is driven by rate only.
You know, I think we've maintained, Shaleen, consistently that on a sustained basis, high single digits, let's say anywhere starting from 7-ish going up 8%, 9%, depending on the hotel and the region and the quarter you pick. That's the kind of range for like-for-like. Of course, you know, you could have quarters when you end up doing double digits like we did this quarter. That is a positive surprise. We did 12% on stand-alone as you saw from our announcement. That's the endeavor to push it up. I think if you want to look at like a 1 or 2-year horizon, I think that's a safe assumption will be in this, you know, mid plus to going close to high single digits.
Of course, the good thing in our pipeline is very real. It's not a pipeline which is not converting to opening. You see a consistent trend of hotels moving from pipeline into openings. Of course, that keeps on chugging the management fee income. Whatever keeps coming on our balance sheet. Yet another full year benefit should come through. Frankfurt is a bit delayed. We expect it to open in June now. You know, that's also in a way it's good because of the situation the way it is. It also helps from that point of view. We'll get the benefit of that in this fiscal year.
And then the rest of the hotels which will open on management contract and the Ginger leases will add to the not like-for-like growth. Got it. We also have the acquisitions to hopefully fire, you know, Atmantan et cetera is being really well touched. I think then as well as the ANK and Pride integration is going very strong. You know, from a business perspective, our sort of endeavor is to ensure that we are able to integrate the brand portfolio in this fiscal year and therefore get the benefit of that, let's say, towards the second half of this fiscal year.
Sir, is it, is it fair to assume that 12% to 14% bridge, if we're looking at ARR from seven to nine, that's where the needle will move, right? We can work with a base case of 7%.
Yeah, that's right. I think these are the tailwinds. There are also little headwinds, as you know, because of the West Asian conflict that there is. Right now, the international hotels are a little bit subdued performance. We saw that in April. We are also watching the situation carefully. Fortunately, the way we don't own hotels, you know, but it's still painful to see what's happening there. As well as the impact of both Indian travelers as well as transit hub, Dubai being a big transit hub impacting our hotels in London and some of the other markets.
Understood, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, and best of luck. I'll join back with you.
Thank you, Shaleen.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir, and congrats for great results. My first question is on your foreign tourist mix. Have you seen any change in your foreign tourist mix in like past two, three months? Related question is like on currency depreciation. This is more like a technical question. When a foreign tourist is booking on your portal, he, or she, he, or she will be like looking at a lower rate now with currency depreciation sharply or like I mean, my question is regarding your rates on your portal are rupee-denominated or dollar-denominated?
Rupee. They are rupee-denominated. I think that's a decision we took a few years back, so that remains the way it is. We do get the benefit of rupee depreciation in two ways. One is, of course, our international hotels. Usually translation happens at the average exchange rate for the period. The second is, of course, in a way it also, you know, rupee depreciating in a way makes it more expensive for people to travel abroad. Domestic tourism and, you know, that's one of the trends we have seen both in March, April, and that I think will continue for the year. You have drive vacations, drive-to vacation and consolidation of miles towards domestic resorts.
I think that's a strong one which we expect that trend to continue in this, in this fiscal year. On your other question, you know, Prateek, on the percentage of tourists, I think it's not moved dramatically, at least for the fiscal years. As we had mentioned earlier, it's, you know, close to 30% for standalone. It is what we call foreign tourists or people who are having foreign passports. And that's slightly lower for the enterprise because, you know, I guess the standalone has hotels in the bigger cities. That number is pretty much consistent for the year. We'll see the trend, how it continues. I think the good part in all of this is the domestic tourism is holding up. The domestic travel has held up quite nicely and which is supporting us.
If I may add, Prateek, the foreign tourist arrivals remains a hidden upside in perpetuity. We are all waiting for it. One day it will come, and it will come by leaps and bounds, and then that will help us compensate. At the moment it's challenging. The flying time is longer. But t he currency, as you said, that will help in choosing India as a destination.
Correct.
A lot of connectivity was happening through the Gulf, with the airlines the way they are, which has also moved the pricing of the tickets, very expensive on other airline carriers. It should normalize, and at some point I think we will have some good campaigns on India as a destination. We are doing our bit, as you know, as at different trade fairs, and which we will keep doing. But it remains a hidden upside in perpetuity.
Yeah. My question is also regarding, like, has that number of 30% or slightly lower, has that changed in, like, month of March, April, May?
Of course. See, there is one thing which you have to know which has changed in India. We should not look at foreign arrivals as tourists only.
Yes.
I think we have to coin a new term called foreign business arrivals. Whether they come for AI summit or they come for now the Africa summit, which is going to happen, or in September, October, we'll have again a B20 or a G20 kind of event we are happening. The BRICS, sorry I'm saying, not G20, B20. The BRICS in September, October. There is a lot of these events which have moved to India as India's gained economic prominence. A lot of delegations keep coming. Just last week was Vietnamese delegation head of state. If you start from the month of January, you had the German chancellor, and you had December, you had the British premier. You know, everybody's come in. It's something which is not going to stop in foreseeable future.
A lot of people who come on business tend to combine other cities for business, and that is helping us. Tourist per sale is on a decline and has stayed subdued to less than pre-COVID levels.
I think it's fair to say that there will be some impact of, you know, non-resident guests coming number going down for us. I think that's been made up, at least domestically we see our numbers in April, they seem to have done quite well. I think they're being made up by both the not like-for-like growth as well as the domestic bias consolidation.
Sure. One other question on domestic tourism. While you're saying clearly, looking like leisure tourism is benefiting, but, have you seen any changes in corporate travel slow down or in terms of the mix of corporate versus leisure, particularly for domestic tourism?
Not meaningfully impacting the numbers, Prateek, so far not.
All right. Sure.
We will see we'll monitor in the sense, you know, given what's been announced over the weekend if there are any impact. As of now, nothing.
Sure. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, just going back to your comments about the domestic travel holding up, I guess as Ankur rightly said, that must have been replaced the international because international people are not able to travel. Do you see that sort of has replaced the international completely in terms of volume as well as the pricing? Of course, I believe that international tourism is sort of a high end of the hotels. But they stay at the high-end hotels. How do you see the replacement? Now, especially after today's comments from our honorable prime minister not to take foreign travels, do you think domestic could actually hold up well and then replace the international demand pretty well? Can you please give a bit of a color on that, your thoughts around that?
You're, you're right. I mean, there was definitely some displacement we did. I mentioned that in the, in the beginning that on console about INR 40-50 crores of impact, which obviously included some domestic impact as well as the international hotels. Some of it has been a displacement from this quarter to maybe Q1 or Q2, depending on how things shape out. Is this going to continue? Is something we are also watching. The impact of the recent announcement or the current announcement is something obviously not known. It could be a positive as well because it could just spur more domestic sort of activities in the country. It's too early to react to that statement, Achal.
Especially, you know, since Mr. Modi asked for more work from home, going back to the COVID times, do you think if there's more work from home could increase the length of the stay at your hotels? I mean, is there any sort of color from your experience previously?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, those are all things we will have to just wait and watch. It's also what shape and form this gets, you know, goes, is taken ahead and how it is implemented. It's, it's, you know, again, too premature. You know, I think the good thing is that the institutional memory is, has been built. COVID is only, you know, five, four , five years back, so everybody knows what to do if such a situation arises. You know, we will obviously figure out a way of handling that if it does come to that level.
You know, if it comes to that, there are various ways of figuring out whether we do more stay cations, et cetera, like you're saying, people have long stays, so leisure markets can get a flip. It's a little bit of flux situation, Achal. It's very difficult to give an answer to you with some clarity. I think the levers are there. The teams have seen this situation before. We are confident that whatever comes, whatever gets thrown at us, we'll be able to tackle it.
Okay, fine. My second question was around the ARR growth. You have given the guidance of ARR growth of 7% to 9%, say assume 7%. Is that 7%, I mean, you know, how much of that you think it could be because of the changing mix? How much of that could be because of the revenue management? Are you doing strong revenue management? Puneet spoke about digital, so you're spending a lot you're strengthening digital, you know. How much is the underlying ARRs you think will grow? Can you please give a bit of a color breaking down your 7%, please?
Very broadly speaking, I think, firstly 7% to 8%, which I mentioned, or 7% to 9%, which I mentioned, was more on the RevPAR side. It's a combination of occupancy and ARR. Also the F&B side, so more like a total revenue type of same store growth. You know, again, various levers exist. Revenue management is clearly a big sort of focus area for us. We've actually invested fair bit of money behind that by, you know, getting some of the latest tools on that front. You know, we are seeing some benefit of that actually already come through. Because what we measure very carefully is what is our RGI related to, you know, the comp set for all the key hotels.
I think this is wherever we have kind of deployed these tools, you can see that actually in the RGI numbers. Now if the market itself is a bit subdued, then of course, that also shows in the that will get reflected in revenues. I think, you know, the sort of the lead indicator is RGI, and I think that's we're happy to see that we continue to maintain the premium. You know, I think this is an ongoing exercise, Achal. It's hard to break down that 7%-8% saying that how much is from absolutely revenue management and inflation. You know, it's going to be a combination of several things. What crew business you take, what you don't, what you decline, et cetera. What kind of events are happening in the city.
I think it's a combination of several things which actually go into that. It's more of an art rather than a pure science. Hard to pinpoint and say, "Okay, this is how we will dissect the 7%- 8% numbers."
No, I mean, you're right, Ankur. Why I ask this is because, you know, I think, in the PTP or in the PPD you have given 2% crew business. I mean, at such a high occupancy levels, are you gonna do strong revenue management? Are you gonna remove the low ARR business, you know? From that perspective I was coming through, and of course you're spending a lot on digital. From that perspective, I was thinking that what space or what, sort of lever you have to play with the revenue management and then further increase ARRs, you know? That's exactly where I was coming from.
Yeah. No, I think that's a good question. We have. I mean, this is definitely an area for us to keep on improving. Not only, I mean, within this also, you know, well, you could have different types of, like MICE is one segment. You could have corporate MICE versus, you know, individual MICE. Transient has also got some mixture of corporate transient versus non-corporate transient. I think those are all levers which, you know, the commercial team actually does this for a living, and they do a pretty good job of that. You can also see on the right-hand side of the chart how the distribution mix is also, you know, evolving with the website investment coming up, and we've seen a gain of almost 2% points. You know, all of this goes into getting the RevPARs up where they are.
Okay. My final question is around the trading in the 1st quarter. While you've guided for a 12% growth in revenue in FY 2027, how the Q1 looks like? I mean, do you see impact in April, May going on from March? Or do you see the sort of booking levels are holding up well? And what kind of business do you see on the book as at same point last year, please?
Q1 has both headwinds and tailwinds. The headwind is of course the West Asia conflict which we have talked about. The good tailwind is that we have a good base to sort of work on. That is particularly true for second half of May and end of till end of June. That will play to our strengths. We should do okay overall. Of course, I think between domestic and international, domestic market will I think do much better than international. And that's what we are sort of doing. We think we should be above 12% for the quarter.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much, Ankur. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sameet Sinha from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. First was I wanted to stress test that 12%-14%. You know, I can imagine it's not a science, but I'm just trying to see how you arrived at number. Did you just take the weakness in April and kind of calibrate the rest of year based on that? Or are you making some assumption about the extent or the duration of this conflict? That's my first question. I guess I'll have follow-ups after that.
Yeah, sure. I think, you know, we have key account management. We have some corporates. We know what rates we have locked in for the current financial year. Second, we know what are the number of wedding dates, what is the business on the books. Number three, what is our not like for like growth. We are expecting to open 60 new hotels, then we have certain income from them. More importantly, also, the 26-plus 36 hotels which we opened in last year, they were also in their growth phase, so they have not stabilized. I think their returns also should increase.
If I take all this into consideration and then add to it, what are the other possibilities that we have in terms of other businesses, how they are scaling up, what are our initiatives? I have said it all in my opening remarks, asset management, which places are under renovation. As an example, last year we had 100 rooms less in Taj Ganges in Varanasi. This year we have added that. Last year we had 2 floors less in Taj Palace, which we said to you in our previous quarterly calls. They are all renovated, they are back. Similarly, we had 2 company-owned hotels less in Ekta Nagar at the Vivanta and Ginger. We have some other critical Ginger openings on capital light model. I think growth is a very important part coupled with asset management.
Then comes what everybody asks, all the analysts always ask only RevPAR. I've always maintained, and I still say RevPAR is one very important metric, but not the sole metric. In India, RevPAR is very important because your total revenue per available room has a sometimes a more significant impact, especially if it is driven in certain quarters by a lot by the saaya dates or the auspicious dates you have for weddings and other activities.
Got it. Okay. In terms of your fiscal 27 number of openings, If I'm seeing it correctly, did you re-reduce the number of rooms by 500 for this year?
I don't know that. Once again, Ankur, would you have idea? Did we reduce 500 rooms?
You're saying opening for, FY 2027?
Correct, yes.
I think it's pretty much what we had sort of mentioned, 5,000 keys on an average per annum.
See, these are rounded figures.
Got it.
They don't gain any growth Last year we added Gateway Palolem in Goa, or we added Gateway in Ahmedabad. They never hit the pipeline. The time they got signed and by the time they got opened was like a few weeks difference. There are certain properties that come in, ones which we, from a prudence point of view, show is what we already know, which is signed and announced to the market. Some of these may get delayed. Let's say instead of 5,000, maybe we open 4,500, but there could be 500, 700, 800 that may come in which we don't know of today.
Yeah. Because, you know, on an ongoing basis, we keep on having discussions for platform partnerships, which could easily get us, you know, like Mr. Pal mentioned, 300, 400 keys through a portfolio of partnerships. We've had a few of them signed last year. I'm not talking about acquisition, I'm talking about partnerships. These are something which is a work in progress thing and can definitely make up for any shortfall if we have on the organic side. I think this is a fairly good number to work with, roughly 5,000 keys, you know, give or take 5%.
You know, I mean, the key point here is that a large portion of this is management keys, and therefore the impact on the P&L is actually very, very minuscule. And that's actually more than made up by what the existing ones which have opened this year could be delivering on the full year. More than the physical keys, I think the impact on P&L is actually quite small on the whole thing. Very, very small number.
Got it. No, I can imagine you guys are balancing a lot of things. One final question. Puneet, as you think about if you look at your pipeline, I think by the end of fiscal 2030, you'll probably end up at 30 owned and operated 30% owned and operated, 70% is gonna be under the capital light model. You know, last time we met, which was during your Analyst Day, you had said a goal was 43%, 67%, something like that, 37%, 63%. This number seems to have changed. Is there gonna be an update in terms of your long-term ROCEs and things based on this kind of change?
Very good question. Because you remind us that it's time to announce our next capital market date, which we will do so in the next few weeks. We were just waiting for the right moment. Now that we have completed the bridge transaction, we are hoping to announce also that, you know, we have signed more than 30 amendments to that ANK and Pride portfolio, of which 15 should convert and open in this 1st quarter itself. I think its time for the next capital market date to be announced so we can give you more accurate guidance. Because with the uncertainty around what was happening with the West Asian crisis, all the focus was there. Allow us to do that.
I think it's better that what we said we'll do 63% capital light. If it is moving towards 70 on a larger portfolio, we are obviously very pleased with it. I'm sure you are also pleased with that.
I think, Sameet, just to add, I think we didn't have the hindsight of the ANK Pride portfolio when we did the capital market day. That portfolio is actually completely capitalized with the exception of, you know, very few hotels which are on the balance sheet. Essentially, that has obviously made the portfolio look more capital-light, but it is not at the cost of letting go of any capital-heavy assets. It's actually on top of that.
Got it. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you very much.
I just to sum it up.
Yeah.
That is what was a very important part of our introductory remarks on building resilience and scale by brand, by contract type, and by geography.
Fair enough. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, and thanks for the opportunity. Congrats on double-digit RevPAR growth during the quarter despite external headwinds. My first question to you, Puneet and Ankur, with the overall crude oil volatility and global geopolitical scenario feeding into aviation costs and broader inflation, while we haven't heard anything yet, if we start seeing capacity reduction announcements by domestic carriers over the next few months, if this volatility continues, how should we think about the second-order impact on travel demand, pricing power, and perhaps even the operating margins over the next two to three years?
Karan, every crisis is an opportunity. Some of the brands that you hear today were created in the worst crisis where everything came to a halt. You know, Qmin, amã, all these started without any upfront capital investment during COVID. For a sector that has kind of seen zero revenue in a lockdown, I think a few shifts here and there might create opportunities even, let's say, work from home, but the home could be in Holiday Village or in Fort Aguada or in one of our amã Stays & Trails. There is a lot of change that may happen and also may not necessarily happen because we don't know, maybe the war is called off.
We are monitoring it very closely, and one of the reasons we got to the growth in Q4 and a decent start in April and the first 10 days of May is we do a lot of tactical stuff. We cannot control where the market is going, but we can control our market share.
Yeah.
We can increase our market share with the strength of our brand, with the strength of our sales and marketing activities, and we have been successfully able to do that. I think we remain overall quite optimistic. If a doomsday scenario comes in, then it's doomsday for all, then we figure out what we'll do. The only difference this time would be last time when that happened, we had a lot of debt. This time we have none, and we have a lot of cash. It might throw other opportunities.
Sure. Just on the, you know, comments regarding RevPAR and, you know, if you look at FY 2026, despite several one-off headwinds every quarter, you still managed 78% occupancy and 8% RevPAR growth for FY 2026. Going into FY 2027 where, you know, you're also talking about the industry tailwinds and also a favorable base, the 7% or 8% RevPAR guidance like for like, is that on the lower end because of the geopolitical uncertainties? Or are we nearing somewhere, you know, the far end of the cycle wherein growth hereon will not be pricing-led but not like for like driven?
I think on cycle you see our chart on supply. We've looked at what's got announced, what's really got built. I think we feel reasonably certain that, you know, this is going to be a tight supply situation, at least for the reasonable future. Therefore, you know, RevPAR should continue to sort of be inflation plus, giving you the ability to pass on costs, et cetera, and beyond that. I think that is the context in which we are sort of dealing. Of course, there is on top of this you have this sort of overhang of what's happening geopolitically. There is some we have tempered that outlook with what's happening geopolitically. That's the upside also.
You know, at the end of the day, this is not going to last forever. Like, like we've said in our slide that, you know, we, it means we lost out on certain amount of revenues, which are actually quite visible on basis the pace we had February 28th, right? I think that's also the upside we see that, you know, as and when things become normal, which could be, you know, this month, it could be six months, we don't know that. We are well-positioned to take advantage of that as and when that happens.
Sure. Lastly, on the cancellations during the quarter, specifically on MICE business that was lost, are you expecting this business to return over the next few quarters or has that gotten canceled altogether? Also on outbound travel, which is expected to see a slowdown, are you seeing any sustained substitution of that by domestic luxury and leisure demand? Perhaps, do you expect that trend to continue beyond FY 2027 as well?
It'll be a mix of these. All these things are always a mix. Some of that does get deferred and comes back. We postponed our own sort of conference, hospitality conference. Some of that actually is something which gets deferred. Of course, in hospitality there will be some element which will be lost because, you know, fights and nights are gone. You know, I think that's part and parcel of the game. You know, we are sort of factoring that in as we look at the forecast for Q1 and for the year.
Sure. Great. Thanks, Ankur and Puneet. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Murtuza from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Just on some data points on Roots and TajSATS, if you could give your full-year revenue and EBITDA numbers?
TajSATS is there in the segment. If you see the segment slide.
Sure.
it's there on slide 56.
Okay.
These are impacted by. I would like to just clarify that some of the growth numbers you see on EBITDA, which is lower than in revenue, is primarily because of the levy impact, which we had called out at the beginning of the year, that there will be this year, you know, some impact of levy, which was accounted in a different manner as per the, you know, the how the airports have now charged that to TajSATS and to every catering company. Adjusted for that, the margin actually expanded by a percentage. The revenue growth would have been lower. It would have been more like 11%, 12% and not 16%.
Sure. Roots, Ginger?
Yeah. I think Roots also, I mean, we've given the Ginger slide, which gives a, you know, overall revenue of close to INR 700 crores, which is effectively Roots Corporation and Ginger Mumbai, Airport. You know, the thing is, Roots Corporation does not own Ginger Mumbai, Airport.
Yeah.
From a business perspective, it makes sense now to look at Ginger console rather than looking at Roots on the standalone legal entity. This has grown at about INR 709 crores, which has grown nicely and maintained a very high EBITDA margin. That's also slide 29 on new business.
Yeah.
Murtuza, sir, does it answer the questions?
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take the last question from the line of Rahul Jain from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, sir. Congratulations on a resilient set of numbers. I just have one question on the operating leverage side. The annual standalone portfolio, I mean, the revenue has grown high single-digit, but we've still managed to expand the margins at a decent rate in FY 2026. FY 2026 consolidated numbers on the margin front were relatively flattish. We're still seeing good, healthy like-for-like and non-like-for-like growth. How do you see the margins going forward? Do we still have room for operating leverage to play out in the system or is it more of a mix between the non-like-for-like and like-for-like growth?
You know, I think there is still scope for improvement. The reason is that most of these brands, as we have said, are in an infancy phase. They have not yet scaled up. On top of that, we had high costs of acquisitions. It's not just that you acquire something. You have high legal fees, you have high travel costs of due diligence. We are very happy with the 35% margin as long as I've said it in several quarterly calls that we did not put any upfront capital investment with the new brands. We need to but put enough horsepower behind them in terms of sales, marketing, talent, people to scale up that business. That's how we are scaling up our portfolio, and we have more than increased it by 400% in last eight years.
At the same time, we have more than, you know, at an enterprise level, we have almost increased our revenue by 300%. By the right mix, by brand, by geography, and by contract type, we are getting this margin and the resilience in the margins. There is a little bit of an art and a science attached to it. Art is the art of growth, and science is the kind of growth that you do to create that resilience in your margin and create elasticity in the portfolio by removing whatever volatility is possible to be removed in this kind of business.
Understood, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we take that as our last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Chhatwal for closing comments.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us on this call. We are very pleased to have shared our results with you and the management summary. We look forward to interacting with you in the next fiscal and in the next quarter, in a maximum of 90 days from now. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of The Indian Hotels Company Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you everyone for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.