With double-digit growth expected in its lifeblood, Indians excited by the promise of a better life, and companies driven by the goal of remaining competitive, Hyatt Hotels Corporation is doubling down on its expansion strategy in India. India is a strategic part of Hyatt’s Asia Pacific growth strategy, given that India was recently outpaced by China to become the world’s most populous country, and is experiencing a surge in domestic travel and disposable income.
India: A Key Growth Engine
There are over 1.4 billion people in India, and the country has great potential in the hospitality sector in terms of growth opportunities for global businesses. The company is planning to open six new hotels in the country this year, including Ghaziabad in the north and Kochi in the south, while emerging cities like Chennai and Mangalore. These additions are to cater to traditionally urban travelers, but also to the rising number of traveling tourists and business travelers to Tier II and Tier III cities.
Hyatt is an Asia Pacific expansion, and India is very important to us, and that is what Carina Chorengel, a senior executive at Hyatt, told Reuters in an interview. The Asia Pacific region (APAC) has more than 1,400 Hyatt hotels around the world, and 325 are already in the region. India is becoming an important part of the country’s demographic scale as well as its citizens’ travel aspirations.
Doubling Down: 100 Hotels in 5 Years
The blueprint of Hyatt includes doubling its hotel presence in India to 100 properties in the next five years. It is consistent with its broader strategy of capturing value as spending by India’s middle class rises, especially among young professionals and families in search of high-quality travel experiences. India is an expense of its hospitality giant, which has a medley of double-digit revenue growth under its belt in the country and continues to anticipate similar growth over the next few fiscals through FY26.
The brand’s consistent performance in the country is a strong foundation for future expansion, affirming Sunjae Sharma, managing director of Hyatt India and Southwest Asia. He said that India’s population density, fast-rising urbanization, and increasing domestic mobility make it a lucrative and resilient market.
Post-COVID Travel Boom Spurs Demand
The stress of COVID has resulted in a spike in domestic travel across India as restrictions on relaxing the disease are lifted. All this is being seized by global hotel operators, such as Hyatt, to expand and localize their offerings. As a result, brands have been forced to contemplate relooked at traditional hospitality models and have moved towards lifestyle and midscale segments—a segment from which Indian travelers are now increasingly spending.
Hyatt’s move echoes that of rivals such as Hilton Worldwide, which recently said it intends to quadruple the number of its hotel rooms in India in the next five years. The trend is a growing industry wide call to arms: India is no longer emerging, it’s a destination for long-term investment in hospitality infrastructure.
Consumer Trends Drive Strategy
While there are worries for a short-term slowdown in consumer spending, major global brands of all industries, from hospitality to retail, continue to bet on India. Expectations that India’s growing working-age population and urban consumer class will cushion temporary economic dents are behind the optimism.
Hyatt simply needs to go further, beyond the big cities, and look for aspirational travellers in small cities. Being forward-thinking and timely, the focus of Hyatt’s India is strategic. By tailoring its plans for expanding that business to the trends in demographics and patterns of urbanization, the company is positioning itself to become the hospitality leader in one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies.
