French hotel giant Accor and Indian travel-management and hotel-development firm InterGlobe have moved into a second phase of their partnership with the formation of a new Indian travel platform.
The Hospitality Enterprise platform has a goal of opening 300 hotels in India under Accor brands by 2030. Accor currently has 71 open hotels in India.
Accor and InterGlobe also are investing in a majority share of Indian hotel-franchising firm Treebo, which has approximately 800 hotels across India. As part of the deal, Treebo signed 10 Mercure-branded hotels in India and will become the master franchisor for Accor’s Ibis and Mercure brands in India.
The Accor-InterGlobe-Treebo alliance now is the third-largest hotel firm by room count in India, Accor said. The plan will also include Accor's hotel brands in other segments, such as luxury and lifestyle hotels under Accor’s Ennismore division. Accor has approximately 45 hotels brands under two division, luxury and lifestyle and premium, midscale and economy.
“This landmark partnership marks a transformative moment for Accor and its brands in India. … In India, we are unlocking unprecedented growth potential in one of the world’s most exciting travel markets,” said Accor’s Chairman and CEO Sébastien Bazin.
Rahul Bhatia, InterGlobe Enterprises’ group managing director and InterGlobe Aviation’s managing director, said that the partnership aims to “redefine the hospitality experience by offering exceptional value to our guests and setting new standards for excellence in the industry.”
Accor and InterGlobe first formed a partnership in 2004 to develop and open Accor’s Ibis-branded hotels in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Today, that partnership has yielded a portfolio of 22 open hotels and 3,996 keys, with one property in development. The 206-room Ibis Mumbai BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex), opened in mid-March.
InterGlobe’s hotel portfolio, under the umbrella of InterGlobe Hotels, are mostly affiliated with Accor's Ibis brand. But it also has a Pullman- and a Novotel-branded hotel in New Delhi; a Novotel-branded hotel in Bengaluru, and two Novotel-branded hotels in Chennai, according to CoStar.
Of its Indian portfolio, it owns all of its hotels save for four, which it manages, CoStar added.
All will be included in the Accor-InterGlobe new management platform.
Major player
InterGlobe is India’s largest company in the travel space, with existing hotels both in India and internationally. Its airline IndiGo has more than 400 airplanes serving 89 domestic India destinations and 37 international cities with more than 2,200 daily flights. The airline processed more than 118 million passengers in its last full year of trading.
According to the National Stock Exchange of India, IndiGo’s market capitalization is 2.01 trillion Indian rupees ($23.21 billion), and surpassed the 2-trillion-rupee mark for the first time on March 20.
India has the world’s largest population of 1.5 billion, and its outbound tourism market is expected to reach $55.4 billion by 2034, with an approximate annual growth of over 11%.
In 2024, Indians spent a record $17 billion in foreign exchange for overseas travel under the Reserve Bank of India’s liberalized remittances scheme, a 17% increase over 2023.