Indian Hotels Co Ltd (IHCL), which owns and operates the Taj brand, has signed a framework agreement with Calcutta’s Ambuja Neotia Group to come up with 15 hotels and resorts, including 12 in Bengal, expanding the footprint of the Tata group’s hospitality arm in the state.
IHCL, which also owns Vivanta, Ginger and SeleQtions branded properties, has a portfolio of 15 hotels at present with 1,500 rooms to offer, making it the largest hotel operator in the state.
Under the agreement signed on Monday in Goa with the Neotias, who already have a portfolio of 28 hotels with the Tatas, Ambuja will build Taj resorts in Darjeeling, Lataguri and Sunderbans.
Puneet Chhatwal, managing director and CEO of IHCL, said, IHCL hopes to unlock the tourism potential of the East and the Northeast just as it helped build destinations such as Rajasthan, Kerala, Goa and Andaman and Lakshadweep Islands, with a partnership with Ambuja Neotia.
“These projects, predominantly under the Taj brand, are expected to come on stream over the next five years, beginning with the signing of four hotel operating agreements for a Taj in Darjeeling and a SeleQtions in Calcutta and Siliguri each and one Tree of Life in Lataguri,” he added.
While the properties will be operated by IHCL, the investment in developing them will come from the Ambuja group, which is in the process of taking the hospitality business public with an IPO.
Harshavardhan Neotia, chairman of the Ambuja Neotia group, said the investment in the projects over 5 years may reach ₹5,000 crore, including ₹700-800 crore under construction. “We have the land for the properties. Some of them are under construction and some are in the designing phase,” Neotia explained.
Taj-branded luxury villas will come up in Darjeeling, Lataguri and Raichak, the first such residential development in Bengal, apart from Gangtok, Sikkim.