High Impact Deliberations

The 8th annual Hotel Investment Forum India (HIFI) conference held in Mumbai recently saw industry leaders deliberate and discuss the critical issues that are having far reaching impact on hotel investments in the country.

- Sudipta Dev & Mohit Rathod

As Mumbai played host to the Hotel Investment Forum India (HIFI) conference after a gap of a few years, the fact that the state government and the tourism department are trying their assiduous best to make the city the events capital of the country was reiterated by Valsa Nair Singh, principal secretary, tourism and cultural affairs, Government of Maharashtra. In his opening remarks, James E Burba, president, BHN spoke about the optimism in the India market. “This market is at an early stage of upturn in terms of hotel investment,” he stated. Giving his outlook on the Indian hotel industry, Vijay Thacker, MD, Horwath HTL India pointed out that demonetisation will have long term benefits though there will be reduction in discretionary spending. “For hotels, the wedding months and F&B business will take a hit. The Big Fat Indian Wedding will take some time to come back. Healthy room rate will take sometime to grow till occupancy stabilises in different markets,” said Thacker, adding that demonetisation should be looked at as a big detox, in the long run it will be positive and a good time to invest.

Demonetisation in fact dominated the panel on business and the Indian economy. Harshavardhan Neotia, president, FICCI and chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group, welcomed the move on behalf of FICCI, though he averred that the hospitality industry will be impacted, in particular impulse spending in restaurants and leisure travel. KVS Manian, president – corporate, institutional and investment banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank felt that there will be short term negative impact, however starting from the smaller segment to the organised sector, there will be restructuring of business.