Indian economy not as bad as it is led to believe: Douglas Martell, InterContinental Hotels Group

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) may be the largest provider of hotel accommodation in the world with over 4,600 hotels across 11 brands in nearly 100 countries. However, its Indian presence is nothing to write home about despite the British chain having the oldest association in the country since 1962. Today, the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza-branded chain has 15 hotels - a meagre number compared to the 198 hotels it has in China.

In an interview, Douglas Martell, vice-president, South West Asia, who recently moved from IHG China to Gurgaon, NCR, says that mid-scale brands - Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express - will drive growth for the UK-based company in India even as the hotels giant sees growth flattening out in China. Martell has his task cut out as the Indian mid-market hotel industry, which is seeing maximum growth, has several competitors like Marriott's Courtyard, Starwood's Four Points by Sheraton and Accor's Ibis. Excerpts:

IHG has been in India for a very long time. But despite the legacy, the chain is far behind some of the international players in terms of number of hotels. Where do you think IHG lost out?

You are correct, some of the global hospitality chains have a more robust hotel portfolio here compared to us. But I don't think we have lost out. Could we have been more focused on the market a few of years ago? Definitely yes... (With) our proven ability to rapidly grow in emerging markets, and now that we have the talent and structure in place here, we will quickly catch up with our competitors like we have done in other emerging markets (IHG is the largest player in China with 198 hotels, a market it entered in 1984, which was much later than its foray in India).

Our resources, capabilities to do joint ventures like the one with Duet for 19 hotels and large management contracts, for instance, the 10-hotel deal with Brigade Group, will help us to leapfrog our growth movement. We have had our share of experiences in the Indian market. We realized that earlier when our brands were franchised, we lost control over them. Hence, though globally our model is largely franchised, here we prefer management contracts.

When you say that talent and structure has been put in place, what exactly do you mean?

Earlier, India was like a sub-office to the Middle East or Singapore office. And the representation was more at a director level. But now, we have put in place a senior management team for all major functions from finance to sales and marketing to human resources to ensure that India works with a greater degree of independence and that decisions are taken quickly. More so, if an opportunity comes up, we don't have to consult other regions as we now have the skills and capabilities to make decisions. We will still leverage on the Middle East and Singapore offices. But when it comes to running the operations or grow the development pipeline, we now have the talent in place.

You said that IHG intends to catch up with competitors. How do you plan to do that?