Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for attending this virtual meeting. I'm pleased to welcome you on behalf of EIH Limited and SKP Securities to EIH Limited's Q2 FY 2026 earnings webinar. We have with us Mr. Vikram Oberoi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Vineet Kapur, Chief Financial Officer. Friends, this virtual meeting is being recorded for compliance reasons, and during the course of the discussion, there may be certain forward-looking statements. These must be viewed in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. We will have the opening remarks by Mr. Oberoi, followed by a Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, Vikram.
Thank you so much, Navin, and a very good morning to everybody who's participating on this call this morning. Maybe I can start by just talking about both Q1 and, to a lesser extent, Q2. You know, we unfortunately had Operation Sindoor, and I'm glad it didn't last too long, but that did impact Q1 results and, to some extent, may have flowed into Q2 as well. Other factors Vineet will cover in his presentation that impacted the industry as a whole and us as well in Q2, so Vineet will cover that. Of course, we had the recent explosion in Delhi, which my condolences to family members who had people who passed away or who were injured. So far, we haven't had a significant cancellation, particularly from foreign guests as a result of that.
Yesterday, I was talking to a travel partner based out of the U.S. who brings very large and upscaled groups to our hotel, in fact, more than once a year, and she was telling me that she did get a few calls from people who are on the group coming in February, but fortunately, there have been no cancellations. I hope that remains so because it is important. The winter months are important for foreign travel into India, and I hope this crisis and tragedy does not impact that in a negative way. With that, I will pass it on to Vineet to give you a short presentation, and then we will be happy to answer your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Vikram. Thanks a lot, and good morning, everybody. We'll start with the performance, a glance on the performance side. We got a few disruptions, geopolitical disruptions in Q1, which also impacted Q2. Basically, international level continued to be impacted by the geopolitical disruptions, mainly because of Operation Sindoor as well as the Middle East conflict. On top of that, we also had a little bit sentimental impact because of the Air India crash that happened in June, where people were a little bit risk averse in Q2 for air travel. Due to that, we also saw domestic air passenger traffic decline by almost 2.5% in Q2. On top of that, we also had adverse weather conditions due to excess rainfall, which was seen all across major regions in India, which also affected the travel, especially the domestic travel.
On a light-to-light performance, this is without the operator and airport launch in Mumbai. Q2 revenue growth was 9%, and the EBITDA growth declined. In fact, there was a drop of 3% in EBITDA. While looking at Q2, we would say we should look at H1 costing. We had a few shifts between Q1 and Q2 between last year and the current year. If you look at on a YTD basis, H1 performance, revenue growth has been around 14%, and EBITDA growth has been around 12%. At the end of September, we were sitting on a cash reserve of INR 1,050 crore, which is pretty healthy and very comfortable for driving future expansions for the group. Coming on the industry performance, Q2, we saw a flat in occupancy. We saw almost flat versus last year.
There was an increase still of about 5%-7%, and RevPAR increased by on average 5% versus last year. I would say, considering the fact that last year Q2 was impacted by demand post-elections, the pent-up demand post-elections, and also had a higher number of wedding dates, YTD performance would be a good measure to see the industry growth. Considering the fact that we still had impacts of Operation Sindoor and Middle East on H1, overall occupancy, though it remained almost flat to last year, we saw a good healthy increase in ARR in the range of 7%-9%, and this for industry. That also helped in increasing overall RevPAR in the range of 8%-10%. Despite the facts that we had impacts of Operation Sindoor and Middle East conflict, excessive rains, the industry did well in H1.
From a management perspective for the current year, we feel that the sector is poised for a significant expansion. We see growth in domestic tourism as well as corporate and MICE segments. Also, the key growth drivers, which are infrastructure, new airports, new highways, is driving the growth for luxury travel. Also, we see a pretty high demand for luxury for leisure travel due to the good growth in India's middle class, upper middle class segment, as well as growth in HNI population. Considering that we are also expanding robustly in the coming years, we are lined up roughly 27 properties across global and domestic markets, which will be opened by 2030 through direct ownership, through JVs, associates, and management contracts. Considering that, we see a pretty robust growth in the future for the hotel segment as well as our group.
I'll jump to operational performance, and this chart reflects the RevPAR leadership. This is the RevPAR leadership for EIH Hotels, both domestic hotels, including managed properties, which shows a pretty healthy leadership over the competition set. Just to mention, we have 13 out of 515 hotels, which are in the STR benchmarking, which have a rank either of one or two. A lot of our properties in the STR benchmarking lead in the industry.
Vaneet, I'll just add, eight hotels are ranked one and five hotels are ranked two on STR. There are a couple of hotels where we do not have benchmarking data. For example, Vanyavilas does not have benchmarking data. Maidens does not have benchmarking data on STR. Those hotels have been excluded because we do not have a comp set for those few hotels, but also hotels that are small with very small room inventory as well.
If you look at the quarter two RevPAR growth in the industry, the industry growth was an average of 5%. Overall hotels, including owned and managed hotels, we grew at 7%, and the overall hotels led the growth with a high of 5%. Considering that we are overall, as a group, we are able to manage even a higher RevPAR growth versus the industry, shows the fact that the luxury and the upper-scale industry continues to be much in demand and is showing a much more higher ARR growth in the higher-end segment of the hospitality. On private end, if you look at the overall versus last year, we only saw a 1% growth. That was mainly impacted by a large number of weddings, which took place last year, as compared to a fewer number of weddings which we had this year.
Other than that, if you look at the overall summary, EIH Hotels continue to lead in RevPAR growth versus the industry. Just looking at the Q2 ARR trends, when we look at monthwise occupancy across the last three months, we had occupancy in July was much better than last year, but flattened out in August, mainly because of excessive rains and actually also resulted in a lower occupancy in the month of September, mainly impacted by the excessive rains and the flood situation in northern and middle India. On an overall basis, if you look at it, we were flat on occupancy versus last year, 72%. Despite the fact that occupancy was flat, we were able to drive our ARR almost by 7% higher than last year. The growth was mainly coming in September.
In July, the ARR almost was flat to last year. The growth only came in the month of September, where we saw much higher room rates across our properties. This is the slide which talks about the RevPAR growth by city for Q2. Jaipur Hotel, we saw declines in Jaipur, Mumbai, Shimla, Chandigarh, and Udaipur, while the other cities still continued to grow in RevPAR. Jaipur got impacted. Jaipur Hotel was partially under renovation, which impacted the RevPAR growth. The same thing was there for Mumbai, where some floors were getting refurbished. Due to that, we had a lower RevPAR growth in Mumbai. At the same time, Shimla and Chandigarh got impacted by excessive rains, which we saw both in Punjab as well as in the Himachal Pradesh area, which resulted in a decline in occupancy as well as the rates.
Udaipur also was lower, and that mainly was due to the lower number of passengers we witnessed in the Udaipur market in the current year as compared to last year.
Yeah, just to add, STR data showed a 15% decline in passenger travel to and from Udaipur, which is quite a large number. This is for Q2.
The current slide is talking about the room revenue trends. More or less, the trends were in line with last year. We did not see a major increase or decrease. Most of them in the same pattern as we have seen over the last few years. We saw some increase in leisure segment in Q2 as compared to last year, while the MICE activity was lower because of the lower number of weddings, and that was because of the lower number of auspicious dates, which were there in Q2 of current year as compared to last year. Otherwise, on direct and corporate, we almost saw the same trend, no change in movement versus last year. We will move to the financial performance for quarter.
If you look at quarter two performance, FY 2026, as compared to last year, we saw a revenue increase of 2%, while there was a drop in EBITDA by 9%. This was mainly impacted by Oberoi Grand not being there in the current year, and also Oberoi Airport Services Mumbai not being there in the current year, which led to a lower EBITDA as compared to last year. On standalone, it is the same. Those two impacts were there. We saw the same trends as was for consolidated. Maybe one thing I missed in one of the slides before was on the international market. We saw a good healthy RevPAR growth in our international hotels, where we saw roughly 7%-8% increase in RevPAR growth in most of the international portfolio.
On the next slides of the fund position, we continue to have a good cash reserve and continue to build on those cash reserves in the last few years. Overall, a good healthy position to drive both our organic growth on our own hotels as well as to support further expansions in the coming year. Just getting into the quarter two performance, we talked about overall revenue was up 2% versus last year, while EBITDA was lower by 9% as compared to last year, and mainly impacted by Grand and Oberoi Mumbai not being there operationally. On a PAT, same impact coming through many of the EBITDA decline, and we were down 12% versus last year. Yeah, this was quarter two.
If I look at consolidated performance, which is H1, and therefore, considering the fact that Q2, we saw a couple of shifts between Q1 and Q2, between last year and current year, H1 data will, it's more reflective of the operational performance, where we saw an increase of 5% and 6% increase in EBITDA. This is despite the fact that we didn't have Oberoi Grand operation as well as Oberoi Airport Services. Both healthy in terms of revenue and expenditure and EBITDA, but we had a one-time impact in Q1, which was the Mashobra because of white blood settlement we had. There was a one-time impact of INR 102 crore that resulted in a year-over-year decline in profit impact by 33%. Oberoi Group continued to be recognized for the exceptional quality and the service.
We have got quite a few awards in the last six months, mainly if I refer to, we have delivered several awards for the U.K. We got Travel and Leisure Award, U.S. World Best Awards, where four of our hotels were ranked among the top five best resorts in India. We continue to also get quite some accolades for our restaurants. Eight restaurants in the Oberoi Group have featured on the list of India's finest restaurants. The same thing, if I cover the next slide, even Michelin has, in the inaugural edition, recognized four hotels under two keys and three hotels under the one key in the current year. We will talk about the current expansion plans and the upcoming projects.
Overall, if you look at the hotels in the development pipeline, we are looking at a total of 27 properties with almost 2,000 keys, 2,100 keys addition, which will be effective by 2030. Out of this, 17 Oberoi Hotels, we have seven in private and there will be three luxury boards and one night closer. Out of the 27, roughly domestic will be 18 and international will be nine properties. There will be a mix of both owned and managed. In owned, it will be between our joint ventures and associates. Managed properties will be 19 properties to be added by 2030. Most of the additions, we have additions happening in the current year, but most of the additions will come in 2028-2029, which will be a big, which will be a good inventory add during the next couple of years.
Just to mention, the Oberoi Rajgarh Palace is almost ready. These are the few photographs of the property. This will open on 16th of November. We have roughly 66 keys which will become operational from 16th of November. Considering the current booking trends, we see a very healthy interest in our property from our guests. This is the business footprint where our national presence, both in Oberoi and Trident, we have 3,700 keys all over India. On the international side, we have six hotels with 408 keys under the Oberoi brand, all across different destinations. That is it. I am through with my part. Coming back to you.
Thanks, Vineet. Thank you, Vikram.
Thanks, Vineet.
Friends, we now will open the floor for the Q&A session. Anyone wanting to ask a question, please raise your hand and we will take it up. We take the first question from Amit Agarwal. Amit? Amit, please go ahead.
I think Amit may be on mute.
Right. Amit, please go ahead. No, Amit, we can't hear you. You're very faint. Amit, maybe you can just fix your mic and we'll come back to you. We'll take the next question from Deepak. Deepak, please go ahead. Give me a minute. I think these guys are having some. Madhav, I've unmuted you. Please go ahead. Madhav Agarwal.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, I wanted to know that if I remember correctly, in the previous quarter, you mentioned that there will not be any exceptional items going ahead. In the current quarter also, we have seen. Now going ahead, would there be any exceptional losses?
In the current quarter, if I see exceptional items, mainly was coming Q1. What you see is the H1 number, where you're seeing the same thing impacted. We'll have a few exceptional items in Q2, but that's not something which is pretty high in value.
Okay. Okay. Sir, just wanted some clarity on the owned hotels that are in the pipeline. I just wanted to know that we have seven hotels, right, in the pipeline, owned hotels. These hotels will come under which entity? If I am correct, then the Andhra Pradesh hotels, the Udaipur and the Trident, they will come under Mumtaz, right?
Tirupati and Gandikota will come under Mumtaz.
Visak would be under EIH Associates.
Okay. Sir.
The hotels in Bangalore will both be EIH. In Bangalore, we have a prime site overlooking Hebbal Lake and with a development potential of about 1.3 million sq ft. In that, it is a mixed-use development, which will comprise an Oberoi and a Trident hotel, which are listed in the chart on expansion or new hotels, and also commercial, mixed-use commercial with F&B as well. That is a large development, the Hebbal development with 1.3 million sq ft and two hotels plus commercial space.
Right, sir. So sir, these two hotels will come under standalone or any particular subsidiary?
Standalone. Standalone.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Very helpful. Sir, you have one more subsidiary, Oberoi Kerala Hotels, right? What is there in that particular subsidiary? I know the amount is very small, but still just to get an understanding.
There are no expansion plans under that at present.
Okay. Okay. Sir, just final question on the T20 World Cup. Any particular hotels you see, are you expecting any meaningful surge in occupancies and ARRs due to the World Cup that is upcoming?
Yeah. I think historically what we found is when any events are taking place in India and in particular cities, you always see an increased demand, which allows you to take rates up. We expect that to be the same this year as well.
Okay, sir. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Madhav. Thank you.
Thank you, Madhav. We'll take the next question from Amit. Amit, please go ahead. I guess he's still facing some issues. Yeah, Amit, please go ahead. You're not audible at all.
His voice is, there is some voice there, but.
Maybe Amit could type his questions in if that's easier.
Yeah, Amit, maybe you can put your question on chat and we'll take it up. We'll move on to Vikas Uberoi. Vikas, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, Vikas. Good morning, Vikas.
Okay. Thanks a lot. So my first question is, if I look at last quarter, our ARR growth was very, very strong. It was around 26%-27%. Now, I understand with all the reasons we have mentioned, the war, Air India crash. Now, what we are seeing in the month of May, in the last two months, especially in August, and then we have witnessed double-digit growth in September, is it fair to assume that things will improve going further? Given the underlying demand, which has been strong, and we have mentioned that in the presentation, except for October, which may be temporarily affected by Diwali because last time it was in November, can we assume coming back to that double-digit growth trajectory in terms of ARR in the second half?
My second question is, while certain markets are performing strongly for the peers, we have reported a RevPAR growth of mid-single digits. Can you explain this disconnect? Thank you.
Sure. Let me take the first part first. I'll talk about November, we're in the month of November. Fortunately, demand both across city and leisure locations is strong. We've been able to command high rates in those markets. I have no reason to believe that that is going to change, all things considered today. To answer your fourth question, we're positive about the rest of the year. I'd also like to point out that we do not discount as much as the market does for our hotels, and we do not go below certain thresholds. In summer months, obviously, if there's a depressed market, because we do not go under heavy discounting, we therefore see the impact more than others do.
If you go through historic trends from previous presentations, and I'll even go back to COVID, you will see that because we just do not go down, and we do not want to discount so heavily that impacts the brand positioning of our hotels. In the winter months, which typically start in October through to March, we see increase in demand. Some of that comes from increased foreign travel into India and into locations where we have hotels. We should be able to provide a demand remain strong, command a considerable premium over our competitors.
Thanks. Sir, regarding my second question regarding the summer vacations.
Yeah, regarding your second question, I really, I can't, or I would choose not to answer that question because I don't want to comment on competitors. You will have far greater insight of the competitors than I do. You would have the benefit of the presentation from IHCL and ITC. I am sure from that you can determine their performance relative to ours.
No, sir, I understand. I was just trying to know if there is any runoff because even if I look at the HVAC data, the industry data trends also, it's talking about a double-digit growth in Hyderabad and Bangalore. We have reported muted. I am just trying to understand maybe it was more of a runoff for us this quarter or something like that.
Yeah, I would say that, again, we do not discount as heavily as our competitors. Again, if I just refer to the STR data for Q2 that Vineet shared in his presentation, you can see that eight hotels were STR1, five were, if I remember correctly, STR2. That is a total of 15 hotels that participate in STR data where we have a concept defined.
Fair enough, sir. Thanks a lot and wish you luck for the second half.
Thank you so much. Thanks. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Hello. We take the next question from Raghav Malik. Raghav, please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, just on your key wedding markets, essentially, you said that Jaipur was under renovation this quarter, and Udaipur, you're seeing some lower pack. Any indication that you could give on early wedding-linked demand, like how that's tracking for the upcoming current quarter and upcoming quarters?
Very, very strong demand for weddings in the coming quarter. We see anyway increased weddings. Maybe it is worth pointing out just a couple of things. Udaipur last particularly and Trident as well in Udaipur, really the focus is on weddings in winter where we command very high rates. These are buyouts of the hotel. We are seeing strong demand in that Sukhv ilas, in fact, in the month of November has a majority of dates that are wedding dates. There is strong demand for weddings that we experience in Q3.
Is the Jaipur renovation completed now?
Yes. Yes. We had a significant part of our room inventory under renovation, and that's been concluded. What we've added is pools to the luxury tents, six pools to our luxury tents. We've redone all our luxury tents. The bar has been redone as well. The bar is nearly finished. It's still not finished. It'll be finished in the next week to 10 days.
Just to add that the hotel on the renovation side which you are talking about is Rajv ilas. The Trident Jaipur is one under renovation, and that will only come next year, back in operation.
Yeah. Maybe one other thing that I can add, and this really relates to how India is changing. We have opened reservations for the rooms and tents that have pools at Rajv ilas. We have seen extremely strong demand at very high rates for these category of rooms. We are able to get a considerable premium on the high-end accommodation that we offer at substantially higher rates than base category rooms. Even the base category rooms in our leisure hotels and overall leisure hotels are still considerable. That is really a positive sign about how the market is changing. This is particularly in winter months and how our guests are willing to spend and pay a premium for higher-end accommodation within our hotels.
Sure. Sure. Thank you. My second question was just specific to the Mumbai market. I know that you had some renovation here as well, so there was some impact from that perspective. Just excluding that, maybe, how are Mumbai ARRs and occupancies both tracking? What we have seen is that across competitors as well, there has definitely been impact in the Mumbai market, specifically this quarter. Is that more of a structural issue now with extra supply or?
Maybe I could throw some light on that. I'll give you some information, and then you can draw your conclusions on Bombay. At the Oberoi Bombay, we had two floors. We have 21 keys per floor, and we had two floors that were under renovation. The room inventory for the Oberoi Bombay is 237 keys and rooms and suites. Roughly just over 40 keys were out of inventory, although they were somewhat staggered over Q2. We've upgraded those rooms, and those rooms are back into inventory. We also did not take those rooms because this is a relatively short period of renovation. We still were giving our occupancy on the full room inventory of 237 in accordance with the regulations that STR specify. They are saying if there is a short-term decline in inventory, you still operate on full inventory, which is what we've done.
At Trident Nariman Point, and this is significant, Trident Nariman Point is 585 keys and therefore represents a large part of South Bombay's room inventory. We had last year 120 rooms that were out of renovation. Because that renovation was for the entire six months of the year, those rooms were taken out of inventory in accordance with STR guidelines. That entire inventory came back. I can very happily say that we saw strong growth actually in room nights sold at Trident Nariman Point with the 120 rooms coming back. That may skew data because inventory was compressed last year. Perhaps other hotels in Bombay may have also taken rooms under renovation. Typically, all these rooms come back, or our endeavor is to bring all room inventory back for the winter months where we see stronger demand.
I presume our competitors would try and do the same. You may not be comparing a like-to-like comparison when you look at H1 this year or Q2 this year versus the corresponding period last year.
Sure. Sure. Thank you. That's very detailed. I'll come back in the queue. Thank you.
Sure. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Raghav. Friends, anyone wishing to ask a question, request you to raise your hand, and we'll take it up. Vikram, may I read out some questions on the Q&A?
Sure. Please. Yeah, absolutely. Please. Thank you.
Okay. Mehul wants to know the ARR and occupancy for owned hotels this quarter.
Okay. I don't have that data.
I'll share that. The occupancy for owned hotels for quarter two was 75%. And the ARR was INR 17,168.
Thanks, Vineet.
Mehul, I hope that answers your question. Amit, who's been struggling to get online, he has a couple of points. Congratulations on the opening of Rajgarh Hotel and the bar and restaurant at the Gurgaon property. Oh, thank you. How do we do the accounting for the bar and restaurant for Gurgaon property as a property? Does it belong to us?
Absolutely. Both those hotels, both the Trident in Gurgaon and the Oberoi Gurgaon, are managed hotels. That is, the bar and restaurant have taken into F&B revenue, contribute to the gross operating profit of the hotel on which we get a management fee. That excludes the sales and marketing fee and base management fee, which is in addition to that. It is a simple management contract. Our management contracts are structured in line with what the market is in India.
Are the new openings on lease basis or royalty basis?
Sorry, the new openings, I'm not clear on the question.
The opening of the Rajgarh Hotel at the.
Oh, okay. Rajgarh is a long-term lease. Yeah, it's a long-term lease.
The second question is regarding the London property.
Yes.
In the last conference, we mentioned that we do offload some equity there. We would want to offload some equity there. Any reason for the same? As we have huge cash flows every year, and we do not need to be so conservative.
Actually, we would like to look at other opportunities outside of India. I'm not saying I'm going to highlight some locations. Please, I don't want you to interpret from that that we have anything that we're looking at at this point. When we do, of course, we share that with the stock exchange and yourselves on investor calls. For example, and as an example, the Maldives is a location where you have very high rates, very affluent travel. I mean, Maldives luxury hotels operate at $2,000 a night plus. It's right in our neighborhood. That would be an example of a location we'd like to be in amongst others.
Therefore, freeing up capital that allows us to take an equity position in development of hotels in high-yielding destinations in the region where particularly labor costs are relatively low, rates are relatively high, and therefore you have strong margins is something that we should absolutely look at.
I would say also that there was a mention, but there's no plans to offer any equity as of now. This just can be in the future depending on the cash flows. As of now, there's no plan.
Hope things are clear, Amit. Vineet Bajaj has a question. Could you please provide a bifurcation of the total owned keys, domestic and international, out of the total 4,144 keys?
Yes.
A bifurcation of the total owned keys, domestic and international?
We'll give you those numbers. Just give us some time.
Yeah. Vineet will give those to you. We can perhaps continue and we'll share that once Vineet has precise numbers.
Yes.
While Vineet pulls out the numbers, can we just move on to the next question, Vikram?
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. That was my suggestion. Thanks, Navin.
Prashanth wants to know, Prashanth says, "Hello, Mr. Kapur and Mr. Oberoi. What are the company's plans for addressing upcoming demand in the Navi Mumbai micro market?
Nothing to share at this point. I think with the airport opening, connectivity being so good, it's a very important market for us to be present in. As and when we have anything to share, of course, we will.
The peak [OZA] with a very healthy cash position of INR 1,057 crore as of September 30th, could you outline our total CapEx guidance for the owned origin of this pipeline over the next three to five years?
I don't think we do give guidances, do we? I'll let.
I'll not share the specifics. Considering the fact that our expansion in Goa is going to come soon, and also we're going to start working on Hebbal properties, the construction will start soon, there will be an average spend of at least INR 400 crore-INR 500 crore of CapEx every year.
As a follow-up, for the 19 managed properties, what is the typical margin or revenue share profile we should model for these assets? Will this capital-like expansion be margin-accretive to the consolidated business?
I'm sorry, I can't give you details of our management contracts and the terms or the financial terms and conditions of our management contracts. I apologize for that. With owned versus managed hotels, I mean, the analysts know our business so well. Management fees for managed hotels is a pale comparison to owned hotels, and that's industry-wide. Having said that, management contracts are important for a number of reasons. They allow you to expand without deploying capital, but using your intellectual expertise in managing hotels. I'd like to think that that's something we do very well and give very strong returns to our owners of hotels. That's number one. That's also reflected in STR data. Incidentally, our Gurgaon hotels are both STR1. That's the first thing I'd say.
The second thing I'd say is that when you take on additional hotels, your cost structures don't increase proportionately. The flow-through to bottom line is considerable. You'll see that with the details of the industry on managed hotels that the industry players have. There is considerable advantage in looking at managed hotels and equally deploying capital for owned hotels as well that obviously EIH would also own and manage.
Just to answer the question, will there be margin-accretive? Yes, there definitely will be margin-accretive. Of course, the percentage will be on the low side.
Okay. Navin, we'll rush to the next few questions because we're running out of time. Do you see the industry upcycle of last three to four years now plateauing or slowing down, especially in India? ARR and airfare growth across industry seems to be flattening or slowing down. What's your view on where we are in the industry cycle?
My response to that would be that really since our business is or the hotel business in India is cyclical with the winter months contributing significantly more than the summer months, I'd really wait till the end of this year to answer that question. I mean, we still remain positive about being able to drive rate and occupancies at high occupancies from October to March.
I would just like to add one more thing there. For sure, at this moment, considering the demand, demand is outstripping the supply at this moment. We will continue to see at least a gap for the next one or two years. We see a possibility of considering the demand from upper-end middle class as well as HNI. We see that demand to continue, and we will see at least a good benefit on ARR on account of that.
Yeah. I think Vineet makes a very good point. I would say that you will see a demand or demand outstripping supply for a number of years, just the time it takes to develop a hotel. I see that gap increasing over a period of time. I would give a longer perspective. I mean, I could be wrong, but I would give a much longer perspective for that, possibly five years or even higher.
Rachel wants to ask, is the occupancy of 75% and INR 17,168 standalone, or does it include hotels owned by subsidiaries?
This would be EIH owned hotels, domestic hotels. Will not include subsidiaries and associates. Will be on standalone basis.
Vaishnavi Guru.
Only domestic hotels.
Sorry. How do quarter three and four look for us in terms of revenue growth? Apart from wedding season, any other factor that can drive the growth? Sir, if you can help with EBITDA guidance for FY 2026.
Yeah. I'll take the second part of the second question first. We don't give guidances. To answer the first part, there's, of course, weddings, which is an important segment for a number of our hotels. Also, foreign travel that comes in between October and March of every financial year. Those are two. If you see typically in the summer months, foreign travel, that'll be reflected in a number of foreign arrivals into India. April to October is relatively subdued with substantial increases in foreign arrivals staying at our hotels in the winter months, which are from October to March.
I mean, just the question which was asked before, which was the bifurcation between the owned and international out of the 4,144 keys. Out of the 4,144, EIH keys will be 2,108. EIHA will be 784. Mumtaz is 102. Other managed properties would be in domestic would be 742. If we look at national, owned will be 279. In international managed would be 129. That is the breakdown of 4,144 keys.
Thanks, Vineet. The question was also from Vineet, Vineet Bajaj. I hope that answers your question. Okay. Last two questions on the board. Can you talk about drivers of year-over-year increase in employee benefit cost and cost associated with consumption of provisions, wines, and others?
Sorry, Navin. I have the ability to answer calls on my computer as well. It started to ring. You have to repeat the question.
Can you talk about the drivers of year-over-year increase in employee benefit cost and cost associated with consumption of provisions, wines, and others?
Okay. I'll take the employee cost first. I may say a few things that are not very popular, but I will still say them because I feel so strongly about it. Let me just go back to, yeah. Our industry really is one where people spend extremely long hours at work. I mean, 12-hour workdays and even higher are something that is commonplace in our industry. With that, if you look at data for high-chamber admissions, number of applicants, less and less people are looking at hospitality as a career. Not those people even go to hotel school. Many of them join retail and other services that are related to hospitality.
We have taken a conscious decision to, if we say people are our most important asset, which we say and we believe that to be true, then really this is something that we must address for ourselves. I hope others in the industry will address it as well. If we want to attract the best talent into hospitality, we need to give people conditions that reflect that. Sadly, our industry has not done that in the past and continues not to do that. We really want to move away from that. With that, you will see increased levels of manning both at entry-level supervisory and entry-level managers as well, restaurant managers, duty managers, etc. This is the commitment that we have made to our people.
On food and beverage, I think, and I have not looked at the numbers, but I am going to still answer that question. The overall airport services business operated on extremely high margins and large amounts of revenue. That may have skewed the numbers somewhat as well. Our cost in terms of food cost and beverage cost at hotels is something we watch very closely. That continues to be in line. Vineet, I do not know if you have anything further to add to that.
Just to override the employee benefits cost, which normally increase in the range of 8%-8.5%, which is normally increase with the industry. Of course, we were having a little higher headcount considering we were going to open Rajgarh. That is going to open soon. Because of that, we had some cost limit to that. Also, we have increased our strength in a couple of areas where we wanted to improve on. That is coming with that. If I look at from a consumption perspective, there is a mild increase in consumption percentage that is happening because of the fact that OFS business, our flight services business, has replaced our lounge business in overall revenue terms. In spite of the fact that the Mumbai airport services was closed, we were able to compensate that with a good increase in the flight services business.
Due to the fact that flight services business margins are lower as compared to airport services, you see an impact where our overall cost has gone up from INR 68.2 crore to INR 69.1 crore, and margin has declined by a rare 1%. That is because of that mix change and also the mix change between our hotels. We should see a good improvement coming through in Q3.
Friends, we're running out of time. I'll probably take the last two or three questions by participants. We'll take Amit Kadam. Amit, please go ahead. Amit, please unmute yourself and go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for giving me this opportunity. My first question is on this Oberoi Grand, Kolkata. When is it supposed to come back? I'm sorry if it was answered, but I just wanted to, can you just help me remember?
Yeah. It's actually going to open in two phases. If you just maybe go back, I do not know if you can go back to the slide. We are going to open in two phases with the hotel. I do not know if you are familiar with the hotel, but we have a wing called the Chourangi Wing, which will open first with public areas and the restaurants. The balance of the rooms, other than the Chourangi, will open subsequently. I do not recall the exact months in which it will open, but Vineet, you have that?
It will come in October, October next year when the plan is to come with the.
That's phase one.
That's phase one. In another couple of months' time, we'll also see the full hotel coming in operation.
I think the full hotel will take probably another minimum of eight to twelve months to open after that because that is a sizable part of the area. Chourangi has approximately 50 keys or largely suites. The balance, 150-odd keys, will open subsequently. I also wanted to add a couple of other things, maybe of not such relevance to an investor call, but still important for us. The Grand is a magnificent heritage building. Anytime you go for a—I mean, this building is well over a century old. Anytime you go for a renovation, and this is a complete renovation, we need to ensure we do everything to strengthen the hotel structurally. From a safety point of view, the hotel will remain good for the foreseeable future and also conform to all safety standards that are essential for our guests in today's environment.
A restoration project is complex on its own. When you consider the other factors that are highlighted, it's something that we do with great care. We do not want to do anything that will take away from this incredible heritage and historic building.
Got it. I appreciate that. Secondly, just quickly, can you just run through? You covered FTA, but it's a MICE event. You covered wedding. You covered a little bit of FTA. I just wanted to understand from the MICE events because that's another thing which provides a tailwind to the entire segment, like maybe Trident and where that is very important. How those things are picking up, how that is scheduled for next few months as the MICE also picks up in the second half. If you can also help me, I understand you don't give guidance, but looking at quarter two, where the ARR growth in this challenging quarter was still 7%, should we be optimistic that in this challenging quarter, also 7% was there? If the better times are lying ahead, we should be really a little better off from an indicator.
We are not exact number.
Yeah. No, no. I understand both questions. MICE is, and I covered that very briefly, but MICE in Q3 is strong, both at Oberoi and Trident hotels. At Oberoi hotels, and actually even at Trident hotels, the premium for wedding-related business is significant over other segments. It is a very important segment, maybe not in terms of room nights, but contribution both to room revenue and to food and beverage revenue as well. Food and beverage revenue is substantially higher for MICE than it is for our other segments. Q3 looks very positive. That is as far as MICE goes. As far as ARR goes, I do not believe Q3 is going to be any different to Q3 of previous years.
At least my indication, despite the tragic situation we had a few days ago in Delhi, I think demand, foreign traveling to India will still be positive. That will allow us to substantially take up rates and RevPAR.
Got it. Thank you for all those answers and all the best. Thank you.
Cheers. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Amit. Vineet, do we have another five to seven minutes? There are a whole lot of questions. Maybe two or three.
Sure. Go ahead, please.
Take the follow-up question from Madhav. Madhav, just one question, please. There are others waiting.
Yes, yes. Okay, okay. Sir, just wanted to know that within your own hotels, are there any hotels where the land is not owned by you and it is leased? Why I am asking is because if it is leased, then it becomes more prevalent to look at pre-index margins, right? From that perspective, I am asking that is it that lease expenses is a significant part of your P&L? Just some color on that. Just a follow-up on previous question, this Rajgarh Palace, this would come under standalone Rajgarh and the Goa property. These two I wanted to.
Maybe just for helping out everybody, I'll just, maybe if I just look at the pipeline, I'll just mention when we say owned, Oberoi Rajgarh will be EIH owned. Trident in Visak would be under EIH Associates. Oberoi Goa, Cavelossim will be EIH. Gandikota will be under Mumtaz. Oberoi London is EIH. And Trident Tirupati is under Mumtaz. Oberoi Hebbal, both, and Trident Hebbal would be EIH owned. Hopefully that will help everybody.
Very helpful.
What we have not mentioned there, but I think it is significant, is for Hebbal is also the commercial. I mentioned about 1.3 million sq ft is the development. You can see the number of keys for Oberoi and Trident, which will not be significant in the overall square footage. There is a commercial aspect to that as well. It is a mixed-use development.
We have very few hotels on lease, and they also are long-term lease. Most of the land is owned by EIH for most of the hotels.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Madhav. We'll take the next question from Rajiv Bharati. Rajiv, please go ahead.
Yeah. Your office. Your officer. Thanks for the opportunity.
Hi.
Sir, can you call out what is the CapEx on Rajgarh, which you're capitalizing?
We do not typically share CapEx, but I think it is fairly easy to work out. You take the number of keys. You can get data that tells you what a luxury hotel cost development is, so you can work it. We do not disclose those figures.
Sure. On the flight services revenue, can you call out what is the quantum this time and what is the growth in that?
I would say OFS business would be in the range of INR 120 crore-INR 125 crore for the quarter. We have seen almost a growth of 30%-35% in the quarter versus last year.
Sure. What is the current arrangement with Wildflower Hall in terms of accounting-wise?
Do you want to take that or I?
Considering we are running the hotel under operation management, and we are paying a lease to the Himachal government on a monthly basis. This agreement is valid till March 2026. In terms of the way forward, at least at this moment, we have still not seen the process of an auction going ahead. We are still waiting for that to happen. We have the operation management contract till March. Yeah.
Or possibly if the bidding process starts soon, and it could be earlier than the end of March, whichever one comes first. You do not want to give the we are not going to give the figure, right? Yeah. Okay.
In terms of profitability, is it still profitable after adjusting for the lease?
There have been a couple of things. One is, of course, this year, Himachal was impacted by very heavy rain. Although the roads were not so bad, the perception was there were not as many landslides on the road this year. The perception, people just did not travel to Himachal. We can see that both in the figures of Cecil, where we are incidentally STR1, and the other competitors, well-known competitors in that concept. We know the market has been depressed for everybody when we look at STR data. Wildflower Hall was impacted by that. The other thing also that impacts reservations is people unsure of the hotel's future, and with lack of clarity on whether it will continue to be an Oberoi hotel or not into the future, are reluctant to make reservations.
We have got that feedback from when people call our call center. Those are people that call, and maybe many others who do not even call. We have seen a decline in occupancy at Wildflower Hall as a result of these two reasons.
Sorry, I should have clarified. If we were to, let's say, clock INR 78 crore revenue like last year, because of the lease arrangement you have, will it still remain profitable? That was a broader question.
It'll be difficult to share that.
Okay. Lastly, on Oberoi Grand, what is the drag on the OpEx side from this because revenue is not coming?
We do not share it. I'll let Vineet, but we typically do not share individual revenue. No, no, no. This is a Grand. What's the?
It is not a big impact. Considering we have already moved most of our people to our other hotels, it is not something which we are running with. We are running with a very minimum manning at the hotel. It is not a very big drag on the OpEx.
Oh, I see. Was that the question? Okay. I misunderstood the question.
No. Because you called out 9% adjusted growth, right? I was wondering that if you were to strip out associated costs, what would it have been?
That was the reason for that is only when we compare versus last year. Last year, we had revenues coming from Grand till the middle of the current year, and we did not have this year. That was the only like-to-like. It is not because of the dragging OpEx.
Okay. Okay. Just one thing. On the international side, I can see that after several quarters, we are seeing only 8% RevPAR growth versus 20% what we have seen for the last several quarters. What's happening there?
I would say our hotels in Marrakesh, Egypt, Mauritius are doing much more better. Basically, last year, we again had the same impact of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which actually impacts a lot of these countries. That is getting stabilized, and we are seeing a good growth coming in all those markets. That is what is driving the 8% RevPAR growth, mainly coming from these three hotels.
The point is there's a deceleration versus 20% last year, last quarter in Q1 versus 8% now.
Yeah. Overall, I would say on a quarter-to-quarter basis, you'll see that going down. Last quarter was major impact because almost there was a slowdown because that impact was very high last year in that quarter. You'll see a gradual increase coming in on all the hotels' performance.
Sure. Thanks a lot on all of this. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Raghav, Madhav, Malik, Deepak, yours, I believe, are follow-up questions. May I request you to mail them to me? I'll take it up with the management. We'll just take a few questions which have been posted by Sanjay Toli on the Q&A board. Quick ones before we wind up. Is there any scope of using AI kind of software to enhance profitability?
I think AI is going to touch every part of our lives and every industry substantially. There will be efficiencies that can be derived from AI. You can also improve through a deeper understanding of your guests, their needs, and expectations. I mean, in theory, at least you should be able to segment the market to one.
Any plans to start an online platform for hotel management courses and teaching etiquettes to the new emerging large middle class? Is there any opportunity here?
I do not know how to answer that question. One of the things OCLD is an establishment that has turned out hospitality professionals across the industry since its opening, and not only in India, but internationally. One of the things that we are applying our mind to is what is it that we can do first to ensure that we attract the best talent. Education in hospitality is a key driver of that. That is something that we are looking at. It is nothing that we have firmed up yet. The second advantage of doing that is that we can contribute in a meaningful way to, first and foremost, the learning and development of people, help them learn, develop, and grow in their careers by giving them a strong educational foundation in hospitality, and also contribute to the community and the hospitality sector.
The final question. What is exciting and challenging for you, for your business in the near and midterm future?
Is this my personal? I haven't understood the question. What is it? It's my personal view or Vineet's personal view or?
I guess the question is what drives you.
Okay. I absolutely love what I do. It is a large part of my life. What I enjoy probably more than anything else is the wonderful people that I work with. That is something I enjoy most. I obviously interact with our guests. We have equally lovely guests who are very loyal to us, who provide us regular feedback. I deeply value the engagement that I share with them. Vineet, I'll let you answer the question as well since that.
What's exciting is, of course, all the expansion plans, 27 properties coming on board. That, of course, keeps us on toes. For sure, we are looking forward for many more to come.
In fact, Sanjay Toli who posted this question is there. Maybe Sanjay, go ahead and ask your question if I did not take it up rightly. Sanjay? Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. We have run out of time. Now, I would like to hand over the webinar back to Vikram and Vineet for letting us in advance.
Thanks, Vineet. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for all your questions. I hope we were able to answer most of them. I apologize that we were somewhat reserved in answering some of the questions. Do forgive us for that. I hope Q3 is as good as we think it will be, and the rest of the year too. Q3 and Q4 are extremely important for the hospitality industry, and we are no exception to that. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, everybody.
Thank you very much, Mr. Oberoi. Thank you very much, Mr. Kapur, for taking time out to patiently answer all the questions. I look forward to hosting you again in the next quarter.
Thanks. Thank you, Navin.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Have a lovely day.
You too. Bye-bye.