Club Mahindra Resorts to add 500 rooms @ Rs. 500 cr

Mumbai: Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, a vacation ownership company part of the Mahindra Group, plans to spend up to Rs. 500 crore over the next 18 months towards capacity expansion. The company will add new resorts in India and possibly abroad too, according to a senior company official.

The company, which operates under the Club Mahindra brand, has over 40 resorts and about 1.72 lakh members.

"We are looking at more destinations to expand and plan to add around 500 more rooms in the next 18 months," Deepali Nair, chief marketing officer, Mahindra Holidays, said on the sidelines of a recently held HT Brand Summit.

While some of the rooms will be added to its existing resorts like Virajpet, in Karnataka, it is also looking to build new resorts. Apart from India, the company also has resorts in international markets like Dubai, Thailand and Austria. The company acquired a 60-room resort in Manali, Himachal Pradesh in June. Earlier this year, it also acquired 18.8% stake in Finland vacation ownership firm Holiday Club Resorts. Mahindra Holidays will continue to be on the prowl to buy properties as well, Nair said.

"Opportunistically we will acquire and we are also building. We are open to national as well as international," she said.

Hotel companies have had to weather a slowdown over the last 1-2 years. Mahindra Holidays' consolidated net profit for the year-ended March 2014 declined to Rs. 87 crore from Rs. 91 crore, although net sales increased to Rs. 769 crore from Rs. 694 crore.

The company offers memberships for 25 years, and Nair said that the wider industry and economic downturn has slowed down its pace of member additions.

"New memberships... we have not seen a acceleration or growth. Because, I think, what may get impacted due to the discretionary spends being low is that a commitment to the 25 year thing, that is going to get impacted. I am adding new members, but its not that I am adding more members this month than the same period last year," she said.

The company is focusing on schemes like zero interest EMIs and member referral programmes to boost memberships, Nair added.

Battling slowdown with growth

• Club Mahindra brand has over 40 resorts and about 1.72 lakh members
• Mahindra Holidays' consolidated net profit for the year-ended March fell to Rs. 87 crore.
• It is focusing on schemes like zero interest EMIs to boost memberships.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.