Samhi Hotels Is Looking to Double Its Upscale Portfolio

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Hotel ownership and asset management platform Samhi Hotels is planning to change its portfolio construct and double its upper upscale and upscale hotel room inventory to 2,000 rooms. “This segment of hotels operate at a much higher revenue per room as compared to our current portfolio average,” co-founder and CEO Ashish Jakhanwala told investors in Samhi’s latest earnings call.

The company has started adding rooms to some of its existing properties. By next year, 54 rooms will be added to Sheraton Hyderabad and 22 to Hyatt Regency Pune. “And since these are part of existing operating hotels, the stabilization timeline shall be very rapid,” he said. 

Apart from this, the W Hotel in HITEC City, Hyderabad and the Westin Tribute Combo Hotel in Bangaluru, Whitefield will together add about 530 rooms in key and high-performing micro markets. 

In 2023, Samhi had acquired hotel chain ACIC Hotels, including its 6 properties. It is now repositioning two of the upper-midscale assets from ACIC: These will be converted into a 217-room Courtyard by Marriott in Pune and a 114-key Tribute Portfolio in Jaipur. 

“In our upper-midscale portfolio, we are adding about 80 rooms to our existing Fairfield By Marriott in Chennai. The existing 153-room hotel has seen strong performance within our portfolio. And after this expansion, that hotel would be 230 rooms,” Jakhanwala said. 

Strong Demand: Samhi reported a 15% growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR) for same store assets. “This was a result of continued demand from an expanding office market across our key cities, and a record passenger movement of 77 million passengers during the last quarter. New hotel supply continues to remain very low in key cities and creates a perfect environment for RevPAR growth,” the CEO said. 

He added that Samhi is adding new inventory in its two key markets Bengaluru and Hyderabad as it continues to see robust office sales growth and a strong increase in airline passengers. “The amount of investment and interest that the tech sector is getting alongside global capability centers will continue to boost demand in these cities.” 

Skift had earlier reported that last year, Samhi acquired Innmar Tourism and Hotels, under which it took over the 142-room Trinity Hotel in the Whitefield area of Bengaluru. Real estate services company JLL India’s managing director Jaideep Dang had told Skift that the acquisition was on the back of increasing demand for office spaces. A lot of companies are placed in Bengaluru and are further populating the city. Because of that, there is a growing demand for hotel rooms, he said.

Jakhanwala also said that the indicators for the current quarter are also indicating a strong growth year-on-year. “The occupancy levels are now mid-70s in several markets. We are seeing anywhere between 80% to 90% occupancy levels during week days in some of our key markets and hotels.”

Latest Trends Influencing Indian Weddings

Udaipur and Goa continue to be the most-sought wedding destinations for Indian couples, according to a survey by wedding planning platform The Wedding Company. Nearly 30% of the couples prefer Udaipur as their dream destination, wishing to have an opulent wedding. Meanwhile, 25% of the couples preferred Goa and wanted beachside nuptials. 

There is also a growing preference for mountains and Tier-2 and 3 wedding locations. For Indian couples, wedding venues constitute 40% of their total wedding budget, it added. The company also noted that while mid-range budgets of INR 1-5 million ($11,500-57,500) dominate the ideal wedding budgeting, there is a rising trend towards luxury weddings. 

According to the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), last year, between November 12 and December 16, an estimated 4.8 million weddings took place in India. The segment is a key revenue driver for travel players. 

A Skift feature last year revealed that Marriott hosted over 900 weddings in India in 2023, contributing nearly 10% to its revenues in India. In its earnings call last month, Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) CEO Puneet Chhatwal said that the extended wedding season in the ongoing fourth quarter and the next financial year is expected to boost the company’s growth. 

Air India to Resume Flights to Tel Aviv

Full-service airline Air India has said that it will resume its direct flights between Delhi and Tel Aviv in Israel starting March. The carrier will operate five flights a week on the route on its Boeing 787-8 aircraft. 

In a statement, Air India said that the decision has come after it received all the requisite approvals. The airline had suspended its services on the route indefinitely in August last year citing tensions in the Middle Eastern region. 

Before that, the airline had also suspended operations to Tel Aviv in October 2023 after the Israel-Hamas conflict. It had then resumed flights in March last year. 

A delegation from Israel’s ministry of tourism recently also met with Air India CEO Campbell Wilson to discuss increased connectivity and new routes from India.

Mahindra Holidays to Add 1,000 Keys by March 2026

Hospitality company Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India will add 1,000 rooms to its inventory by March 2026. The move is in response to the growing demand, managing director and CEO Manoj Bhat said in an interview with news agency PTI. 

Mahindra is also planning to add 15 new destinations to its portfolio over the next five quarters. Between April and December 2024, the company added 371 rooms. This was more than the total inventory added by the company during April 2023-March 2024 period. 

So far, in the nine months of the ongoing fiscal year, Mahindra Holidays has added nine new locations to its network. It is eyeing a target of reaching 10,000 rooms by March 2030, from its current inventory of a little over 5,600 keys.

Aircraft Tech Glitches Reduce Over Last Three Years, Says Minister

The number of aircraft technical glitches reported by Indian airlines has reduced over the last three years, civil aviation minister Rammohan Naidu Kinjarapu said on Monday. According to the official data, in the period from January 2024 to January 2025, a total of 273 glitches were reported across nearly 1.07 million flights. 

In 2023, 390 technical faults were reported across close to 1.2 million flights, and in 2022, domestic airlines witnessed 723 glitches in less than 1 million flights. 

Despite this reduction, technical glitches continue to be a major cause for flight cancellations in India. Data from civil aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows that last year, in August, over 45% of the flight cancellations were due to technical glitches, more than even weather disruptions. This number marginally reduced to 41.6% in September. Except for January, technical glitches caused over 10% of the flight cancellations throughout last year.