Royal Orchid scion strikes deal for 2,200 hotel rooms

Bengaluru: Arjun Baljee led-Peppermint Hospitality has aggregated close to 2,200 operational hotel rooms across the country with the acquisition of Bangalore-based Boutique Hotel Management & Marketing Services Ltd, which has 60 hotels in its portfolio.

The deal gives 34-year-old Arjun, the elder son of Royal Orchid Hotels founder Chender Baljee, access to standalone hotel properties that have an inventory of 30 to 60 rooms each and gives him elbow room to push Peppermint brand across multiple market segments.

While the bulk of the aggregated hotel inventory is located in south India, largely in Kerala, just 12 hotels are located in the north and other parts of the country. The Indian hospitality sector is divided among the big hotel brands and a string of individual hotels, which form around 80% of the sector's landscape.

"The brands have pricing power, purchasing power and access to guests that the individual hotels simply don't have. And, this inequality had to be addressed," Baljee told TOI explaining the contours of the deal. He launched Peppermint with the first hotel in Gurgaon in 2010.

Peppermint Hospitality has five operational hotels and is present in overseas markets of Florence and United Kingdom that are operated through the management contract route. At present Baljee is evaluating what quantum of those 2,200 rooms could be branded under the Peppermint umbrella. Baljee operates four brands - Peppermint Hotels & Resorts, Candy by Peppermint, Peppermint Reserve, and Peppermint Residences.

"Peppermint has disbanded the traditional idea of the management contract and will work with all hotel owners on a performance-led, need-based management contract model," Baljee said.

Each property would be attended to with a combination of services such as marketing, management, procurement, and technical collaboration that would be tailor-made to the needs of individual hotel owners. Baljee said that some part of the aggregated room inventory would only marketed by Peppermint without the brand lending its identity.

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