ITC Hotels targets 220 hotels by 2030; 'I think we should do better than that,' says Sanjiv Puri

The much-awaited demerger of ITC’s hotel business earlier this year has indeed proved to be a win-win for the diversified conglomerate as well as its investors. While the ₹3,500-odd crore hospitality business registered a 40.8% growth in net profit in the first quarter post the demerger, Q2FY26 profit jumped by 76%. Sanjiv Puri, chairman and MD, ITC, is obviously elated. “When we had demerged in January, at that time in the investor deck, our team had shown that by 2030, we would have 200 hotels. It is the middle of the year, and we are already saying 220 hotels. I think we should do better than that,” he says in an exclusive chat with Fortune India.

ITC Hotels, which currently has a portfolio of over 140 hotels, has announced its newest premium offering, ‘Epiq Collection’. The first two ‘Epiq Collection’ projects are under development in Puri and Tirupati. The brand, which aims to have 1,000 keys in the medium term, will have properties in culturally rich destinations.

Puri sees immense opportunity in the business of hotels. “The reason for the demerger was that we saw a lot of opportunity in this, and we certainly wanted to accelerate. We pivoted to this ‘asset-right’ (which lends itself to a management model and also the infusion of capital is not so much) strategy some years back, and now a large number of hotels are getting added to our kitty.” He says that the per capita density of rooms in India is much lower than the global average. To add to this, the growing appetite of Indians to go out on frequent vacations, along with better road and air connectivity, makes hotels an extremely attractive business.

“The advent of learning to do remote working during COVID has led to the concept of taking a break anytime. A holiday isn’t just for summer vacations. Moreover, international travel is lower than last year, and it has not yet caught up to pre-COVID levels. It is domestic travel which is growing fast,” Puri further explains.

Contrary to the perception that luxury hotels drive higher profitability by virtue of being higher priced (hence higher margins), it is the budget hotels that are actually the profit drivers. “If you do a hotel on the other side of the spectrum (value) and if it is done well, by not wasting money and doing what people are known to pay for, the margins will be higher. The risk would be less because it would be a less fixed-cost intensive model,” IHCL MD, Puneet Chhatwal, had explained in an earlier interview with Fortune India.  

ITC, says Puri, will play a full-spectrum game. “In terms of number of rooms, you will find that upper upscale and the budget hotels will be larger in the country; therefore, they will be larger in the portfolio. But equally, we would like to have our strong footprint in the luxury segment.”

The hospitality company currently has over 140 hotels across six brands -- ITC Hotels (luxury), Mementoes (luxury lifestyle), Welcomhotel (upper upscale and upscale), Storii (boutique premium), Fortune (mid-market to upscale) and WelcomHeritage (leisure and heritage).