The Hotel Industry Has Ambitious Plans for India

In 2020, the global pandemic upended the global travel industry in ways few could have anticipated. In the four years since then, traveling — whether locally or internationally — has evolved in several ways. In some cases, that’s meant paying significantly more for hotel rooms — or finding familiar destinations booked solid. In others, it involved intriguing perks to upgrade travelers’ experiences either going somewhere or once they’ve arrived.

But those are just parts of an evolving industry. There’s also a big question about where the hospitality industry sees the next major uptick in tourism — and when it comes to that, there seems to be one clear answer: India.

At Hotels, David Eisen reported from this year’s NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. Several industry leaders there shared a similar opinion: that India was at the start of a significant growth period for hotels and related businesses. At the conference, Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta argued that the changes to India’s infrastructure created the right conditions for significant growth in its tourism sector.

“All you have to do is look at what’s happening in infrastructure — all the airports and highways and roads that are being built,” Nassetta said. “Over the next 10 or 20 years, it will be developing travel and tourism at a much faster pace.” Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin agreed; Eisen wrote that Bazin saw parallels between what’s happening in India now and similar conditions in the U.S. and China before each saw a boom in hotels and tourism.

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It’s worth pointing out that the CEOs gathered at the conference saw growth in India’s domestic tourism as a big factor in their predictions. Hotels reported that IHG Hotels & Resorts CEO Elie Maalouf saw Indian families’ incomes rising — and, that, in turn, leading to them spending more on travel. “Household wealth is moving up. Businesses are working,” Maalouf said. And in the coming years, we’ll see what impact that has on the range and size of hotels all over India.