Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the Leela Palaces Hotels & Resorts Limited Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call. 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 then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr Abhishek Agarwal, Senior Vice President, FP&A, and Investor Relations at The Leela. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the earnings call of Leela Palaces Hotels & Resorts Limited for the quarter ended 30th June 2026. We have published our quarterly results and investor presentation on the stock exchanges earlier today. The same is also available on our investor relations website, www.theleela.com/investors. Before we start, a disclaimer. We would like to inform you that the management may make certain comments on this call that one could deem forward-looking statements. Specifically, the financial guidance and pro forma information that we will provide on this call are management estimates based on certain assumptions and have not been subjected to any audit, review, or examination procedure. The company does not guarantee these statements and is not obliged to update them anytime. Participants are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.
Joining me today are Mr Anuraag Bhatnagar, Whole-time Director and CEO, Mr Ravi Shankar, Head of Asset Management and CFO. I will now hand over the call to Mr Bhatnagar. Over to you, Anuraag.
Thank you, Abhishek. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The quarter underscored the resilience of The Leela, India's luxury hospitality demand, despite the softer operating environment created by temporary travel disruptions. For The Leela, this backdrop created an opportunity to demonstrate our agility in managing our business mix, the benefits of increasingly diversified revenue streams, and our unwavering focus on operations excellence, which is reflected in our guest experience benchmark and consistent translation into stronger financial outcomes. As a result, we delivered 28% operating revenue growth and a 41% rise in operating EBITDA. Before I discuss our operating performance, let me begin with a recognition that reflects the strength of The Leela brand, service culture, and distinguished 40-year legacy. The Leela was ranked the world's second-best hotel brand in the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards 2026 survey among global luxury hospitality brands.
This is the fifth time since 2020 that The Leela has featured amongst the top three brands in the world in these elite guest-voted awards, and it's deeply gratifying to see an Indian brand being consistently recognized amongst the global best in its category. Guest experience remains our most important differentiator and the source of our competitive advantage and ADR premium. During Q1 FY 2027, our Net Promoter Score stood at an industry-leading 86, remaining 12 points above the luxury hospitality average in the APAC region. This consistency reinforces the strength of our service culture and delivers tangible commercial benefits through stronger guest loyalty, repeat visitation, and pricing power. The quarter began with the lingering impact of the West Asia conflict, resulting in a temporary slowdown in international tourist arrivals, primarily due to travel disruptions.
Given that nearly 40% of India's international air traffic transits through West Asia, these disruptions have impacted both inbound and outbound travel demand since March. We responded proactively with targeted initiatives focused on mining domestic demand through event-led business, long-stay offers, and digital activations. As a result, domestic room revenue increased by 25% year-on-year at our five Palace hotels. Importantly, we believe that the impact on international business is temporary. As travel connectivity was partially reconfigured and inbound demand revived, the international room revenue mix for our five owned hotels recovered progressively through the quarter, moving from a 10% year-on-year decline in March to a 1% year-on-year increase by June. This recovery reinforces the resilience of our international demand base, even while the geopolitical situation has not fully normalized. More importantly, it demonstrates our ability to dynamically rebalance the business with domestic demand around periods of external disruption.
Moving to operating performance, our six owned hotels delivered another quarter of strong performance. After the drag witnessed in March, occupancy recovered strongly to 67.5% for Q1 compared to 63.6% in the corresponding period last year, highlighting the underlying resilience of demand. We delivered a robust RevPAR growth of 17%, driven by 10% increase in ADR coupled with a four percentage point improvement in occupancy on an expanded portfolio, which now includes Coorg. Even excluding our new resort at Coorg, which was part of the portfolio for the full quarter, we registered a similar same-store RevPAR growth of 15%. Importantly, this growth is on a base of 20% RevPAR growth delivered in Q1 FY 2026, highlighting the compounding gains delivered by our Palaces. Our RevPAR growth was broad-based, with city hotels growing 14%, while resorts grew 24%.
From 1.3x in Q1 last year, our RevPAR index further rose to 1.4x, reflecting continued market share gains. Our premium positioning continues to be the base of our sustained pricing power, which drove ADR growth despite temporary pressures on international demand, especially in the early part of the quarter. Occupancy growth was particularly encouraging, with our existing portfolio of five owned Palace hotels rising to nearly 70%, reflecting our ability to successfully capitalize on growing domestic leisure and MICE demand. Operating EBITDA grew 41% year-on-year to INR 143 crore, highlighting the strong operating leverage of our business model and resulting in a record first quarter EBITDA margin of 41%. Non-room revenues contribute over 50% of our overall operating revenue, further strengthening the resilience and diversity of our earnings profile. We delivered strong F&B revenue growth of 25% year-on-year to clock INR 132 crore, nearly INR 133 crore.
Our curated portfolio of specialty restaurants, bars, and experiential dining concepts continues to attract a diverse customer base, resulting in F&B contributing 38% of the operating revenue. Additionally, more than half of the F&B revenue at our city hotels was driven by non-resident guests, highlighting The Leela's growing position as a preferred destination for dining, celebrations, and lifestyle experiences beyond traditional hospitality offerings. HMA fees grew 86% to INR 262 million, driven by a ramp-up of managed properties, including higher fees in some contracts linked to performance and past key money investments, while other operational service revenues increased by 26%. We believe the macro backdrop for luxury hospitality remains very favorable. India continues to see rapid growth in high-net-worth households, expanding airport infrastructure, and double-digit domestic air travel growth, all of which support premium travel demand.
At the same time, the luxury segment remains significantly undersupplied, representing only 12% of room nights while contributing nearly 24% of industry room revenues. A structural demand-supply imbalance, combined with India's increasing attractiveness as a global destination, provides a strong foundation for sustained growth in the luxury segment. Notably, over FY 2020- FY 2026, Leela's RevPAR growth has been 1.4x of the growth in luxury hospitality RevPAR and 1.6x of the growth in India's hospitality sector's RevPAR. Our expansion strategy remains firmly on track, with consistent additions to our portfolio every quarter since listing. During the quarter, we signed a concession agreement to develop a premium resort in Tadoba in Maharashtra, an underserved premium wildlife tourism location. The development will comprise 30 luxury keys spread across a 62-acre site.
The INR 1,200 million project is to be developed under a 60-year concession agreement with an opportunity to extend for another 30 years and is targeted for completion in CY 2030. Tadoba represents a highly attractive opportunity given the significant demand-supply imbalance in one of India's most visited tiger reserves. Along with Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh, it also adds the potential to create a wildlife tourism trail. Following this addition, our portfolio now stands at 25 properties with 5,257 keys across 15 operational hotels and 10 in the pipeline. We are also maintaining a balanced structure with roughly half our keys owned and half managed, enabling us to scale while preserving capital flexibility. We unveiled The Leela Coorg Forest Sanctuary, the new identity for our recently acquired operational resort on eighth July, ahead of schedule.
Notably, the ADR at Coorg has nearly doubled post our acquisition, and the asset broke even operationally in the quarter, even before its rebranding. We continue to make steady progress across our development pipeline of more than 1,000 keys across Bandhavgarh, Ayodhya, Agra, Ranthambore, Sikkim, and BKC Mumbai. At Bandhavgarh, construction of villas has started. At Srinagar, room walling and landscaping activities are in progress. In Agra, piling works continue to advance, while test piling has been completed in Ayodhya. We remain on track for other FY 2027 openings, namely Jaisalmer and Luxury Residences Mumbai. As we expand from 15 operational hotels today to well over 25 hotels over the coming years, scaling The Leela culture and developing future leaders remain a strategic priority. During the quarter, we launched Leela Centre of Excellence, LCOE, a 9,600 sq ft purpose-built learning hub developed in partnership with Le Cordon Bleu.
The LCOE will help institutionalize the Leela service standard at scale, support a future-ready talent pipeline, and is expected to train more than 3,000 associates over the next three years to support our portfolio expansion. During the quarter, we conducted the LEAD program at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, bringing together 20 members of our executive committee as part of a focused leadership development initiative. The program was designed to accelerate the readiness of our next generation of leaders by strengthening leadership effectiveness, enhancing decision-making capabilities, and providing exposure to global best practices. On the ESG front, our commitment to responsible luxury continues to deepen. We remain firmly on track towards a net zero 2050 ambition. All our owned hotels, including Coorg, have a platinum green building certification, reinforcing a leadership in sustainable hospitality. Almost two-thirds of the electricity consumed across our five Palace hotels is sourced from green power.
To summarize, Q1 FY 2027 has started strongly with rock-solid guest satisfaction scores, a healthy operating and financial matrix, and continued expansion of our growth pipeline. With that, I'll hand over to Ravi to discuss the financial performance in greater detail.
Thank you, Anuraag. Good evening, everyone. Let me take you through our financial performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Operating revenues increased by 28% year-over-year to INR 3,520 million, driven by strong same-store growth, contribution from Coorg, higher F&B revenues, and growth in HMA fees income. During the quarter, the contribution on the Leela brand website booking doubled to 16% versus Q1 FY 2026, reducing reliance on the higher-cost third-party channels and enhancing distribution economics. Excluding Coorg, which is under ramp-up, the portfolio delivered on over 60% EBITDA flow through. Combined with disciplined cost management, this translated into a 383 basis point expansion in operating EBITDA margin, driving operating EBITDA up 41% year-over-year to INR 1,434 million. Over the last two years, we have expanded operating EBITDA margin by 10%, from 31% in Q1 FY 2025 to 41% in Q1 FY 2027, demonstrating the scalability of the Leela business model.
The strength of our operating performance, combined with lower finance costs following the debt reduction through IPO, have translated into significant profitability growth. Consolidated PAT increased five-fold year-on-year to INR 488 million. This is after a INR 156 million loss booked due to the share of profit of JV, which is mainly on account of our Dubai JV. While the Dubai hotel continues to be operational, reduced travel flows due to the West Asia conflict have impacted both occupancy and ADR for the time being. However, the asset is operationally break even, despite this being an off-peak period, on the back of demand from local business and leisure segment, including MICE and staycation. The interest on the asset level debt and the depreciation for the Dubai asset is required to be expensed as per the accounting standard, leading to an accounting loss in the Dubai SPV presently.
As Leela has 25% ownership interest with our sponsor group holding the remainder, the Dubai SPV financials do not get consolidated into our P&L line by line. Hence, there is no impact on our consult revenue or EBITDA. In line with our shareholding, 25% of Dubai SPV profit or losses are reflected in the Leela P&L under the share of profit of JV or associates head. Once we are operational as a Leela brand, we will get management fees income as well as royalty from the planned sale of branded residences that will flow into our HMA revenue and EBITDA and will get consolidated. The Dubai hotel is presently being operated by the existing operator. Leela will take over in CY 2027, and the property will be under renovation for about a year as per our plan.
Recent operating trends and broader travel development indicate that the conditions are improving, and we expect performance to progressively improve as travel activity normalizes. Given the asset iconic positioning and the resilience of the Dubai real estate and the hospitality market, we believe it is well-positioned to deliver a strong recovery and evolve into a significant long-term value creator for the portfolio. We had factored a two-to-three year period for the sale of residences, and there is no change in our business plan presently. The Dubai residential market has largely been resilient. In the last quarter, the prices have remained stable with overall transaction volumes have moderated as expected. However, luxury market continues to see strong volumes with large trophy transactions. FY 2026 recorded 296 home sales above $10 million, a record for the first half despite the regional conflict.
Palm Jumeirah and a few other sub-markets have accounted for a disproportionate share of transaction. Active asset management remains a key driver of long-term value creation. Several initiatives are underway during FY 2027. We continue to expand our portfolio of high-margin experience net value drivers. We expanded the ultra-premium club offering, ARQ by The Leela, to Delhi, enhancing our luxury ecosystem for Leela loyalists. The Azulian House, a 74-cover signature restaurant spread over 3,300 sq ft, has opened to strong reviews and occupancies in Bengaluru. We have also progressed on future growth initiatives, including the upcoming ARQ Chennai launch, a world-class wellness facility in Bengaluru, and a renewable energy project at Coorg and Chennai that will lower our fixed costs. These projects will strengthen customer engagement, driving diversified revenue growth, and reinforce our commitment to environmental stewardship.
Moreover, they will sweat our asset by unlocking incremental revenue streams and improving asset productivity across the portfolio.
We have delivered nearly all the value drivers outlined at the time of the IPO through the disciplined execution. Overall, the balance sheet remains growth-ready with 1.6x net debt to EBITDA, maintained even as we continue to invest in our development pipeline. To summarize, with our operating momentum, development pipeline, strong balance sheet, and iconic brand positioning, we remain confident in our ability to continue delivering industry-leading growth. On the behalf of the management team, I would like to thank our associates, guest partners, and investors for their continued support.
Sir, shall we open the floor for questions?
Yes, please.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. First question is from the line of Karan Khanna from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats, Anuraag, Ravi, and team on another quarter of industry outperformance. My first question, Anuraag, contrary to your peers, your RevPAR growth has been driven by both occupancies improving as well as ADRs. In a tough quarter, you are seeing 17% RevPAR growth. How should we read this for the rest of the year? What stood out in terms of occupancies during the quarter and for full year FY 2027? Are you looking at occupancies hovering around potentially the mid-70s range? Given Q1 historically is the weakest, and still you have seen 67% occupancy.
Thanks, Karan. As you're right, the Q1 basically was impacted, at least the initial part of Q1 was impacted because the international movement was not in line with what it used to be happening over last year. The domestic demand was very robust, and our business pivoted and over-indexed on the domestic demand. If you see our RevPAR and our growth is very well-balanced, both in our city hotels as well as in the resorts. In the city hotels, we have grown by 14%, and in our resort portfolio, we have grown by 24%. We were also able to grow our ADR because fundamentally and structurally, if you look at the Leela business, we have the highest Net Promoter Score. The guest love is the highest for us.
There have been a lot of investments into our luxury experiences and offering and programming, which is reflected in these high NPS scores. The markets in which we operate are typically underserved in terms of luxury keys, and there is that delta between demand and supply. The international business for which we have a very large mix remains like a future opportunity, because as the things normalize, we expect the international business to start coming in. If you look at all the levers of growth, Leela being so strong with domestic resilience and extremely well-loved and well-utilized by domestic luxury travelers, international business yet to come in its full way, we definitely believe that the future quarters will also be strong, and we'll continue on the growth trajectory as we have seen in the first quarter.
Typically from historically, if you look at the second half of the year, is the time when international business, the foreign travelers, the tourist business, incentives, and some very high impact conferences start happening in the country. Every year, we had some major events that have impacted our business and created compression in the markets in which we operate. We expect and we forecast the same to happen. There are several global events that are happening in certain key cities in India where we operate from. We expect the second half of the year to be as strong as it always been historically.
Sure. Secondly, on the Tadoba expansion, I wanted to understand two things. One, what kind of ADRs, occupancies, and IRRs have you underwritten in this asset? Secondly, given it's just 30 keys, is there a chance that the resort could get commissioned sooner than CY 2030? Also, will you look at subsequent phase expansion here given it's a 62-acre land parcel? A follow-up in terms of leverage, given that you've had four greenfield and acquisitions since your listing, what's the upper cap in terms of leverage that you're comfortable with, both absolute and relative to your EBITDA as well?
I think, Karan, we have already signed a concession agreement with MQDC earlier this month. As you said, it's a great addition to our portfolio, being one of the oldest national parks, and it's got the highest number of tigers and a high propensity of sighting and all of that. We are very excited about this property, and this would be, like you said correctly, a 30-key luxury wildlife resort with a 60-year concession agreement, which is extendable another 30 years. We are expecting typically the wildlife segment is a very nuanced segment and a very fast, rapidly growing segment. If you look at even today, the existing wildlife resorts which are operating in the country, they operate at a very high ADR.
We have kept our ADR in terms of what a typical Leela wildlife resort with such a high level of quality, build quality should deliver in terms of programming. We definitely expect the same to be get executed. To your second part of the question that why FY 2030? Of course, this is a very early stage for us. We are working, the teams are working to get all the approvals and the design development, which will be very similar in terms of design language, whilst localized to Tadoba. As you know, we already are coming up with exotic wildlife resorts in Bandhavgarh and Ranthambore. Creating this wildlife trail and a circuit and creating the entire wildlife narrative would be of extreme importance to us because that's what we do in terms of creating experiences. That's why we kept ourselves enough time.
In terms of leveraging, Ravi would like to add something.
Just to complete on the Tadoba point, that's a very value creative deal for us, Karan, and we'll generate 15%-17% of IRR on that deal. Just to give that number.
Sure
Concession, very attractive terms. On the second question on the leverage, our gross debt is around INR 1,500 crores, and the net is INR 1,270 crores. Net debt to LTM EBITDA is 1.66 at this point of time. We have good cash flows coming from our existing same store hotels in the next three years. If you see our EBITDA trend, we'll have enough cash to fund our CapEx, but even if we take debt for the CapEx and even for some acquisition, it's value creative. We have always given the guidance that we are comfortable to an average of 2.5x in the coming years, up and down in some quarters.
Sure. This is helpful, Ravi. I'll come back in with you if any follow-ups. Thank you.
Thanks, Karan.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Deepak Saha from Ashika Institutional Equities . Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations on great set of numbers. Just two questions. First is on the domestic room revenue growth of 25%, if you can attribute some of the reasons behind this, because recently I've started seeing average length of stay really going up on the domestic side. Do you really think this is how durable this particular part is? If you can share some color on that. This is my first question on the average length of stay going on the higher side, at least in the recent time.
Thank you, Deepak. If you recollect, last year also when we had spoken about it in May, we had told that Leela has been building towards the domestic segment in a big way. We have repurposed all our resort hotels to ensure that we enhance the products and programming and experiences to focus on length of stay. For instance, in Jaipur, we added two new restaurants. We renovated as a value driver, our spa, and made it an Aujasya spa. We created unique dining experiences and programming. Likewise, we did in Udaipur as well, and especially focused on various generational, multigenerational traveler. We have seen that play out very effectively in this year.
Also what has also impacted us and it's continued to happen is that as we focus on our experiences, programming, and asset upgrades on the resort side, this segment is going to grow. Looking at all the macro indicators in terms of the growing household income, disproportionate spend on luxury and consumption through experiences. We definitely expect that to continue growing. Length of stay because, see, there are far more people traveling today, staying longer, taking higher categories of rooms, suites, and villas, traveling in small groups and multigenerational travel. These are trends which were set in couple of years back and are here to stay, in our opinion. This is a segment which is going to keep growing. They're going to be keep traveling and staying longer in our hotels, especially on the resort, which are within driving distance of major cities.
Thanks. That's really helpful. My second question is for BRICS that is scheduled 12th and 13th September, we have almost 20% of the total out of the total five old palaces, 20% of the keys are coming from, say, Delhi. How the rates trending up because for BRICS Summit we have already started seeing rates are trending quite meaningfully and if we just see how AI Summit panned out which was really impactful even from our business point of view last year Q4. Are we really seeing that particular event can do meaningfully bring some positive catalyst as far as our numbers are concerned for Q2?
It's a very good question. We are very happy, very glad that every year there are certain marquee events that happen in New Delhi, and The Leela Palace New Delhi is extremely well poised. All our hotels are extremely well poised to receive an outside share of demand. The AI conference example that you gave, and I am sure it was all over in the media, the kind of compression it created and what Leela was able to optimize during the conference. We see the same trends playing out as far as the BRICS event is concerned. Given the sensitivity and how things we are not able to disclose more information at this point in time.
All I can tell you is that we are very well poised to get an outside share of business and are contracted with the right delegations, and we will benefit from the BRICS pre-demand as well, in addition to the conference. Pre and post-demand as well.
Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you, and all the best for the upcoming quarters. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. First of all on the short term, how do you see the trends in July and August basically, especially knowing that July has more wedding days, more events coming through versus last year? The Q1 growth, of course, would have been positively impacted by the problems in the Q1 last year. Do you expect the Q1 growth to continue in July, August? Of course, how do you see the overall FY 2027 revenue growth? If you can give a bit of a color on that, please.
Achal, thanks. Well, we have fared well in July. As you correctly picked up from our downside in March, every month our share of international business has been increasing. In the month of June, we actually came even Stevens with last year's growth and actually grew by 1% year-over-year over last year. We see the same trend continuing in July. Marginally, but over what it was last year in terms of international business, domestic remains very strong for us. August will have festive weekend demand, which will benefit our resorts. Overall, all I can tell you is that there are no real as such headwinds that we kind of foresee for the next quarter or for the balance of the year.
We are very much reiterated based on the current operating environment and the momentum that we are seeing in our business, we remain very confident on delivering double-digit RevPAR growth and mid to high teens EBITDA growth for the FY 2027.
My second question is around your long-term targets for FY 2030. You're expecting 10 times increase in your over FY 2020 EBITDA. Could you please give a bit of a bridging to your FY 2030 EBITDA target to your INR 19.3 billion EBITDA, according to FY 2020 number? What kind of revenue growth, what kind of ADR growth are you building in? I can see that you have shown the 800 owned room addition, which is already in the pipeline. If you add more, can this-
Sorry, Achal, we lost you.
Achal, can you hear us? Achal, can you hear us? Due to no response, we move on to the next participant. Next question is from the line of Girish Choudhary from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on the continued good set of numbers. Firstly, I just wanted to understand this international demand. We have seen recovery through the quarter and also you commented that June was positive. What are you seeing currently in international bookings? Just as a follow-up to that, as and when we see the international demand to fully normalize, should we expect it to be incremental to domestic demand, or will it replace some of the domestic activation which you have done, right, in terms of group bookings or MICE and all those things? That's my first question.
Just to step back and give you a context, both segments have been equally important for us in terms of our mix for international and domestic, even before these geopolitical issues happened, having 50/50. As you correctly picked on, since June onwards, we have seen international demand recovering, come back to FY 2026 levels for the same period. We expect that to now evening out and growing from here on. Typically, the months from October to March are the peak months for international travelers. From there, November to February are the busiest because that's when the international FTOs and the tourists and the MICE and incentives from international travelers also start happening. We see no change in that pattern or trend this year as well.
The long-term bookings that we have, the international conferences that we spoke about, as well as our international tourist arrivals that we see coming to India at this point in time and using our hotels, we don't see any change in that travel pattern. To your second part of your question, what it does for us, look, we are equally strong in both the markets, given our distribution system and our presence and the global recall. I'm sure all of you are aware that Leela has been voted consistently amongst the top global luxury brands in the world, and that acts like a big kind of a pull factor for us.
We expect that once the international business is fully actualized in the second half of this year, it will create further compression on the inventory that we have and give us an opportunity to exercise the pricing power, and yield even more during the high-demand days. Domestic is here to stay, and domestic is also growing in high double digit across all our hotels, both city hotels and resorts. It's a good position to be in, specifically in the business that we are in, where we are over-indexed only on luxury and creating those food and beverage, wellness, and other luxury experiences.
Sure. Secondly, we also noticed a significant improvement from the direct website contribution, which is now close to 16%. If you could throw some more light, what should be the medium-term target for direct bookings? Also what kind of benefit we are seeing on the distribution cost or let's say the EBITDA margins from this initiative?
Our direct bookings for this quarter have been close to 64% from direct bookings from our direct channels, which typically we would expect that for the full year, two-thirds of our business should keep coming and continue to come from our direct business channels. As you correctly observed, our website business has grown 2x. We have put a lot of investment into our revenue management tools, created an AI overlay. We have optimized and yielded on the best of technology and also the talent to ensure that our brand.com and our website business continues to grow. We are currently also working on enhancing our business channels and also creating more AI-based content which can be picked up by the LLMs and have access, which can ensure that we get more business directly. In terms of costing, generally, the cost of direct acquisition is significantly lower.
Without having to give you a specificity right now, it is like almost one-third the cost of what you would pay to a third-party external channel or an OTA. That's the benefit of having direct business. We already operate at industry-leading EBITDA margins. If you've seen the EBITDA for this quarter has been 41%. Consistently, if you look at FY 2026, our EBITDA margins have been close to 48 odd percent or so. All of this creates a better flow through for us, and hence we continue to focus on the direct business and direct channels.
Sure. Lastly, if I may, the other outlier has been the HMA fees, right? We are seeing, again, substantial growth. If you could, again, give us a sustainable number, because now we are tracking close to INR 100 crores annualized run rate. If you could just give some more light on the sustainability of this.
HMA is an ongoing business for us. The HMA contracts have various fee structures and incentive linked to performance and past key money commitments. While quarter on quarter the growth may vary, but we are confident about the trajectory of the fee income and its growth, given the expanding managed portfolio, the upcoming hotels, both in India and internationally.
Got it. Thank you, and all the very best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vaibhav Muley from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very strong set of numbers. Pleased to see the numbers. My first question was on our expansion pipeline. Though we have a very strong pipeline slated over the next three to four years, we have seen minor delays, if I'm not wrong, in terms of our timelines for Bandhavgarh, Srinagar, as well as for Ayodhya, Agra. Is there a few quarters delay in terms of timelines?
Vaibhav, all our activities are in full swing, and all our projects are on track. The delays that you probably are alluding to is what we declared last time. That there's just been a quarter or so of delay. If you look at all our expansion pipeline that we have declared right now, we are well set to open Srinagar in calendar year 2027, as well as Bandhavgarh. This year, by the year-end, we will be opening Jaisalmer and The Leela Residences. We are on track to open Agra, Ayodhya, and Sikkim, and Ranthambore in CY 2028. We have added Tadoba to the mix, which will open in CY 2030. All are public. For example, in Jaisalmer right now, we are finishing the interiors and putting a pre-opening team in place.
As far as The Leela Residences are concerned, the pre-opening teams are already in place, and we are doing interior fit-outs at a very advanced stage. In Srinagar, the walling work and the landscaping work has started. Right now we are doing the ceiling work and also very much on track, and we will do plantation next month and progress in terms of the project to open next year. Bandhavgarh, the villa construction has already started. Sikkim, the main block work and civil work has already started. Ayodhya design development and test filing has been completed, and the main filing work is to commence. That should be commencing by the end of or middle of August, middle to end of August. Agra, the filing work has already started. Ranthambore, this being a 400-year-old fortress, we have to stabilize the walls.
You are right, that has got now delayed by a couple of quarters. We have now stabilized the wall, and this is a work in progress. This is a one-time activity where we are building in Ranthambore. Once that is done, we can fast-track Ranthambore as well and catch up on the quarter. Tadoba, we have just started, and we signed the concession agreement. Mumbai BKC, we have finalized and in the last stage of preparing the site and finalizing the design development. As I mentioned, all our CapEx projects are on track and at various stages of development as per the timelines.
Understood, sir. That perfectly explains it. My second question was on The Leela Coorg. We have rebranded the property very recently. I just wanted to get your feedback in terms of how has been the initial customer response since the acquisition and post the rebranding. Any sort of color you can provide in terms of the revenue contribution expected for the first year, FY 2027.
The customer response has been great. I am sure if you are there on the social media or if you go on Tripadvisor or any of the public sites, you will see how the guests are responding to it. Like everything else that we do at Leela, we have created experiences and programming to ensure that our customers love what we are doing, whether it is just food and beverage or the wellness, an extremely well response. The first couple of months, three months actually, since we opened the hotel. You can get more details on slide 14 of the deck that we have made, where we have given some metrics.
We rebranded the hotel as The Leela on eighth of July. We have been able to improve occupancy and importantly, the ADR to nearly 2x levels in this quarter as versus what it used to be earlier as in pre-acquisition. We have also achieved the EBITDA breakeven even for the quarter. Right now, EBITDA contribution in Q1 was negligible, but we broke even. Post rebranding ramp-up is now being driven by integration into the Leela distribution network, our loyalty ecosystem, direct channels, domestic. We'll now be focusing more in terms of wellness and international wellness and leisure travelers into Coorg. They go to phase 2. It's very much on track and very much in part of what we had envisioned for the task.
Related to this, when do you plan to do this brownfield expansion of 19 keys? Lastly, on the RevPAR front in the business properties, you have delivered a very strong number this quarter, despite having significant presence in Bengaluru and Chennai, which are the markets which are FTO dependent. What we have done differently than the industry where we have outperformed the industry growth in terms of RevPAR? These are the last questions. Thank you.
I'll quickly answer what you asked on the follow-up question on the Coorg. We are presently focused on stabilizing the operating asset. Post that, we will work on the expansion of the 19 keys in Coorg. When you spoke about what we have done differently, look, we have been very consistent in terms of what we deliver. See, the first building block is the voice of the customer that we focus on. The second thing is what is the value and experiences that we create and focusing. Third is the asset management approach and the revenue management approach that we bring to all our assets and all our operating platforms. Of course, all our hotels are in iconic locations, extremely hard to replicate. The supply that's even coming in those markets is not really coming into our micro markets.
There is a huge demand for the luxury and experiences and programming, and we see the household income and discretionary spend happening everywhere. A combination of all these levers, plus with such a high customer love, global recognition, and the brand value that has been recognized globally, we have all the right levers to continue growing on the RevPAR growth across both the city hotels as the resorts. Our city hotels, especially Bengaluru and Chennai, have a very large share of GDS business, high-profile corporate business, global CEO/C-suite representations and delegations. Delhi is the hotel where heads of state and heads of state global delegations come and stay for visiting dignitaries and global conferences. Udaipur and Jaipur and now Coorg are becoming destinations for very high-quality celebrations and luxury experience-seeking travelers.
We definitely believe that all our hotels in that sense are unique, and we continue growing both in terms of RevPAR under our revenue and asset management initiatives.
Thank you. Vaibhav, I'll request you to come back for a follow-up question. A kind request to all the participants. Please limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin for a follow-up, so the management will be able to address answers for all the questions from the participants. Next question is from the line of Prashant Biyani from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, regarding the Dubai asset, given what's happening in the Middle East, is it giving us any opportunity to either prepone the CapEx or we are evaluating and postponing it under the current circumstances? What are the plans there right now?
Prashant, we are on track on our plan. We'll get the handover from the current operator and start the refurb early next year. As per our plan, we intend to complete the renovation in the next 12 months and rebrand to Leela.
Right. Sir, for the companies which have reported results till now, we have seen RevPAR management either being done through occupancy or through ADR, and for you it has been through both, and that is why you have delivered the numbers you have. Sir, of the top three hotels of yours, can you elaborate how the RevPAR performance has been? Are there hotels which have been outlier or there has been broad-based growth across all hotels?
Both international domestic is our important key pillars for our growth and just when the international mix was little muted, we focused on the domestic demand and we grew around 25% of the revenue. Even our retail segment grew by more than 20%, where ADR also grew high double-digit. All our cylinders fired. Even our branded website grew from 8% of double-digit growth we had in the branded website growth as well. Even the group business, we were able to have the BoB in the very start of the quarter, and we have been able to have in the month, for the quarter business as well. That led us to both occupancy and the ADR growth.
Specifically since you
Right.
from our portfolio, like we mentioned, both our city hotels and our resort hotels have done well. Jaipur and New Delhi specifically have had some great performance. Across, it's been very broad-based and spread across all our entire portfolio.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. My question is for resort hotel. We have seen a 24% RevPAR growth. We know that there is a base effect of Operation Sindoor. Apart from that, is there any higher demand from, say, outbound has de-grown and that business has diverted, or there is more other event and any other factor for higher growth?
Our FIT share has grown significantly. It is not just led by events or celebrations. As I mentioned in a previous answer also, there was a lot of investment that we did last year in our resorts to grow our market share, to grow our share in terms of multi-generational traveler. We invested in kids club. We got very nice kids club in both our hotels. We invested in wellness offerings. Food and beverage venues were renovated. We added a very nice terrace restaurant, The Amber Terrace in Jaipur. We have seen families coming and staying with us, and we expect that this trend of multi-generational travelers to keep growing and increasing. Resorts, if you see our occupancy and ADR growth in our two hotels in Rajasthan, they both have done extremely well in high double-digit growth, and hence 24% growth in terms of RevPAR.
It is not just based on the outbound effect that you are alluding to. I would like to disagree with you, it is not even a low base effect of O peration Sindoor. Even if you look at last year's numbers, there was a high double-digit growth in our resorts. It is like year-on-year, our resorts are continuing to grow high double digits. Of course, because it is just a market impact as well, because there are increasing number of travelers who can drive to these destinations, and experience luxury.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Karan Kamdar from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on a great beat of numbers. Sir, my first question is on the EBITDA margin. What have we done sequentially to sort of see such a high margin for this quarter? Were there any items which could persist throughout the year, or was there some one-off impact?
If you look at our EBITDA margin, we always have been consistent in driving our EBITDA margin quarter-on-quarter. On year basis, we are close to 50%. This is a summer quarter, hence we are at 41%. Because of the cost structure that we have, we have been able to manage our costs. For example, a lot of our AMCs and our central procurement, we have got very effective rates from our vendors. We have renegotiated all those rates from them. Our renewable share of energy is around 67%, which we intend to take it to 75%. All these costs plus the growth in our revenues also has helped us in driving EBITDA margin, and we expect our EBITDA margin to continue the similar levels or grow it marginally quarter-on-quarter.
Any targets you've set for yourself for FY 2027, FY 2028 on the EBITDA margin side?
I think we already operate a very significant good EBITDA. We are around 50%, and we intend to maintain that and marginally grow it year-on-year as our ADR grows.
Got it, sir. My second question is, sir, on the Mumbai HMA Mumbai residency side. If you could throw some color on the revenue potential and by when can it achieve peak potential, that would be helpful.
We are looking at launching the Mumbai residences. It is 56 keys, various combinations across 200 bays. We have two-bed, three-bed luxury residences. We are looking at getting all the approvals in place. The asset is getting ready. The mock-up rooms have been finished. Show rounds are starting towards the end of this year, and we are looking at having residences and tenants move in in early next year. This is how we are planning it, and we are very much on track to execute that.
Got it, sir. Anything on the revenue side? How will it generate revenue, and what percentage, if any, if you can share?
All I can tell you is that this is a very new and interesting line of business. This creates a whole ecosystem of live, work, play. This is already creating a lot of demand and a lot of queries. This will be positioned as one of the best luxury residences product and service offering under the Leela brand in the city of Mumbai. We are expecting it to be well-positioned in its category as one of the highest and the best.
Got it, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Akash Gupta from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, am I audible?
Yeah.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on an excellent quarter. My question is on our INR 20 billion EBITDA target by FY 2030. The question is, how much have we logged in? Do you think if there is any downside risk to this number, considering the volatility that's going on in the world? That's my first question.
I'll answer. We are on track of what we have given our targets. You have seen our same-store performance. We have either achieved or overachieved the targets quarter-on-quarter. You look at the new pipeline, the last five quarters, we have signed five new deals that will add to our both top line and EBITDA margin, and we continue to look for value creative deals both on the HMA and the acquisition side. Terms of our development pipeline, all our five owned hotels are on track. We have all discussed about it. We have all approvals and financing in place, the construction going on full swing. I can say all in all, we are in track. We are moving in the right direction to achieve the targets that we have committed.
Just I'd like to add on a couple of points to what Ravi has said. All the value drivers which were playing a big role in terms of contributing to this EBITDA have all been executed, like in terms of the ARQ clubs, the new F&B outlets, the retail space. Like Ravi mentioned, every quarter we have added on to our pipeline. If you recollect the guidance that we had given, we have exceeded that guidance as well historically across all our stores. We remain firmly on track.
My second question is on the two hotels coming in calendar year 2027. Are they coming towards the beginning of CY 2027, or should we expect them towards the end? In which case we shouldn't assume any revenue contribution from these two hotels in CY 2027.
Early 2027. We are expecting them very early. We would definitely look at them somewhere in the first quarter of 2027 is when we are looking at. You're talking of Jaisalmer and The Leela Mumbai Residences, right? Which one are you talking about?
I'm talking about the Srinagar and Bandhavgarh, the two owned properties that are coming.
Srinagar and Bandhavgarh will come towards Q4, October to December of 2027.
Understood. That's the question I had. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Madhav Jhawar from SKP Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I wanted to know, broadly speaking, if I look at your resorts occupancy for FY 2026, blended it was 59%. Going ahead, where do you see this number, the occupancy of your resort hotels in the next, let's say, three years, four years? Any targets you have or any number you can share?
I can just say what Anuraag earlier mentioned, we have really worked on our resort programming. We have joined villas to create a multi-gen travel. We have created a kids club in all our resorts to have a 12-month occupancy, and hence you would see our resort occupancy inching closer to 60, and we expect that with the 12-month market that we are trying to create for resorts, we would be able to go to mid-60s. That's our growth trajectory that we intend to go to, and we are confident we'll be on track.
Okay. Similarly for city hotels, if I see, on a blended basis, it was 72%. How confident are you from this 72% level for these existing hotels? The occupancies at these hotels can go up to how much? Is there 80%? Any number you would like to mention?
We don't have a specific target. We focus on the ADR positioning as well while looking at growing our occupancy. Obviously a lot of luxury hotels do operate in the market in close to 80. We can obviously cross 75% threshold as well, we are more targeted towards driving the ADR and accordingly the growth from the ADR side rather than the occupancy.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhishek Khanna from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I just had one question. On the management fees, which has nearly doubled on a year-over-year basis, while you mentioned that there is an improvement in the existing hotels. Also is there a one-off that we expect in this one? Or should we take this INR 250 million, INR 25 crore kind of a number as we run it with the seasonal improvement that we could see in 3Q and 4Q, which means the annual number would be closer to INR 100 crore? Is that the correct way to look at it?
As I mentioned earlier in some another question that somebody had asked on HMA. Half of the portfolio is HMA for us, and it is ongoing business. Every quarter we will have a new hotel coming or a new existing hotel ramping up. These HMA contracts have various fee structures and incentives. Some are linked to the performance of the hotel, some are linked to the past scheme money commitment. These growth percentages may vary quarter into quarter, but I can only tell you that we are very confident that the fee growth will keep happening based on the opening of the new hotel, ramping of the hotels that we are doing, both India and internationally.
Okay. All right. Just maybe one small one. The Coorg hotel, just to confirm, you said had nearly zero EBITDA contribution in the quarter. Is that correct?
Had a positive EBITDA contribution and will start ramping up because we just rebranded the hotel.
Is it a significant number or very small number in the overall EBITDA?
Not too significant looking at the overall EBITDA, but there's EBITDA positive and this will ramp up and will do similar EBITDA margins as other resort hotels in Leela does.
All right. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we will take the last question from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Sorry, I was thrown out of line. Again, coming back to the question of your long-term target, would appreciate if you can do a bit of a bridging from here to FY 2030 to your INR 20 billion EBITDA target. I can see you have given 800 room additions in that target slide. If you add more rooms, do you think there is an upside risk to your target? What should be the ROCE target for FY 2030? If you could please give a bit of color there.
Achal, I did explain on this question, I will tell you, if you have seen our same store numbers, we have achieved our targets or we have over achieved our target. We are fully on track of the same store numbers that we have committed. Even if you look at our development pipeline, all the hotels construction have started, the financing and approvals are all in place. For the new pipeline, we have signed up five hotels in the last five quarters, there is a very active pipeline, in terms of both owned and managed hotels, which will drive our EBITDA. Third, if you look at our growth in our RevPAR, we are looking at least a double digit RevPAR growth in the coming years. That is our endeavor to achieve, that will also flow to the EBITDA because of the operating flow-through that we have done.
This will take us on track to achieve the target that we have committed to our investors and the market. Even the value drivers that we spoke about, all the value drivers committed in the IPO have already been operational, they are adding to our EBITDA, they are fully stabilized.
Anything on the ROCE, Ravi?
ROCE, obviously we are double-digit ROCE, and with these new hotels when they open and the value drivers will be stabilized, this will go to mid to high-teens ROCE in the coming years, in two years, when all the new hotels will become operational.
Perfect. Thank you, and wish you good luck.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that was the last question for today. For any further queries, you may reach out to the investor relations team at The Leela. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you all.