The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) is an Indian hospitality company that manages a portfolio of hotels, resorts, jungle safaris, palaces, spas and in-flight catering services. It is subsidiary of the Tata group conglomerate. IHCL was founded in 1899 by Jamsetji Tata and is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It has more than 175 hotels in 100 locations and 12 countries, with over 21,500 rooms and 32,000 employees. It has four brands Taj, Vivanta , SeleQtion and Ginger. The Ginger hotels have revolutionsed budget travel in the country, offering both leisure and budget travelers the comfort of a luxury travel on budget. Recently IHCL launced Ama Plantation Trails. Ama Plantation & stays is India’s first branded product in home stay market, comprising of a group of heritage bungalows, guesthouses and home stays at unique location across the country. Ama Plantation trails has total 9 bunglows and 33 keys located at 2 locations. A collaborative venture of IHCL and SATS (formerly Singapore Airport Terminal Services) called TajSATS . TajSATS is India’s leading airline caterer and a leading institutional player. TajSATS provides 88,000 meals per day in 6 cities which helps it to have market share of 42%. IHCL has some of the most distinguished fine –dining and multi-cuisine restaurants and lounge bars in its portfolio. With more than 380 restaurants and bars around the world , it offers a multitude of speciality cuisines flavoured with tradition and innovation through its signature brands such as Bombay Brasserie, Golden Dragon , Wasabi, Thai Pavilion and House Of Ming. The Taj chambers is an exclusive business club that operates in seven locations across India and Dubai. The club provides its member the choicest facalities , backed by Taj’s iconic services. Taj holidays offers a wide selection of distinct holiday packages to guests with unique holiday requirements. Taj wedding studio is platform connecting wedding planners and brides/grooms to make their dream weddings a timeless memory. Tourism has now become a significant industry in India . It is a sun rise industry, an employement generator, a significant source of foreign exchange for the country. Tourism in India is the third largest foreign exchange earner of the country. The booming tourism industry has had a cascading effect on the hospitality sector with an increase in the occupancy ratios and average rooms rates. The travel and tourism competitiveness report by world Economic Forum ,has ranked India at the six place in tourism and hospitality. The tourism and hospitality sector is among the top 10 sectors in India to attract the highest Foreign Direct Investment .According to the data released by department of industrial policy and promotion , the hotel and tourism sector attracted around US $ 10.6 billion of FDI between april 2000 and September 2017. The Indian government has also taken several steps to make India a global tourism hub. Since April 2017, the e-tourist visa facility has been made available to citizens of 161 countries as against earlier coverage of 113 countries. During 2018, foreign tourist arrivals ( FTAs) in India stood at 10.56 million, achieving a growth rate of 5.20 % YoY . FTAs in January 2019 stood at 1.10 million , up 5.30% compared to 1.05 million YoY. The travel and tourism sector in India accounted 8% of the total employment opportunities generated in the country . International Hotel chains are increasing their presence in the country , as it will account for around 47% share in the tourism and hospitality sector of India by 2020 and 50% by 2022. To further boost the tourism and hospitality sector government of India has introduce Swadesh Darshan and PRASAD scheme in 2014-15 Budget for developing theme based tourist circuits in India. This will led to development of hotels , guest houses and home stay opportunities. Domestic expenditure on tourism has grown significantly ; In 2016, the market reached US $167.2 billion representing growth at a CAGR of 13% during 2008-18, which is expected to reach US $ 364.3 billion by 2027. All this will give boost to hotel industry. Puneet Chhatwal took over as managing director and CEO of IHCL in 2017. New leadership spurced a new strategy . IHCL came with an impressive and ambitious plan Aspiration 2022. Under this IHCL is aiming to expand and cut down on debt at the same time. The plan on reversing their current ownership model .By 2022 ,IHCL will own 50% of the hotels down from the current 65% . The rest will be on management contracts. An asset light strategy would help them to bring down cost and ensure a faster growth rate. Punnet Chhatwal is a numbers guy and is focusing on revenue optimization. IHCL want to be the largest and most preffered hotel chain in India by 2022. Key updates on its five year business strategy , Aspiration 2022- on its journey to become the most iconic and profitable company are as follows: The management is pleased with the progress in its first year of Aspiration 2022. The reimagined brandscape with its portfolio of distinct brands allowed company to deliever a robust development pipeline . The company scaled up its inventory with the signing of 20 new hotels adding approximately 3000 rooms across key cities such as London, Dubai, Makkah, New Delhi and Kathmandu. Key pillars of aspiration 2022 strategy are Restructure, Reengineer and Reimagine. Luxury and upscale midmarket hotels may be able to increase average room rates further in the current fiscal given the slowing supply of rooms and rising occupancy rates. In past 18 months , the hotel sector has been reporting a gradual demand recovery. The occupancy rose to 65% in FY18 from 57% in FY13 and average room rates increase by 2-3% after stagnancy during FY13-FY17. Rising domestic travel aided by corporate events , increasing trend of leisure travel among the middle class and growth in foreign tourist arrivals will likely boost average room rates in coming years. The sector occupancy level may touch 75% in the next 4-5 years. The key market such as Mumbai , Delhi and Goa are clocking occupancy over 70%. Revenues of hotels in mid scale budget segments like ginger hotels are expected to rise by 20% annually in next 4-5 years. In the same period revenues of luxury hotels are expected to grow 15% per annum. New 8,574 keys will enter the market in 2019, a nearly 19% rise over the last two years. The tide will change in 2020, when the hotel industry is anticipated to register its highest occupancy rates ever since the beginning of the century, out doing 2006 ,which is considered a superlative year for industry. Over last years hotel supply in India grew by 3.7% in 2017 and 3.5 % in 2018, while demand grew by 7% and 6.8% . Another benefits are even business tours people prefer to do it in luxurious way. Because during business tour after business activity is done people prefer to spend the rest of the day in luxurious way so that after returning from the tour they don’t require vacation to relax. Plus such business tour happens in every 2-3 months. So this will help to boost hotel industry. On consolidated base IHCL income from operation is at Rs 2870.91 crore in March 2019 . The company’s net profit grew to Rs 263.70 crore in March 2019 from Rs 84.15 crore in March 2016. Management is constantly working on increasing profit of company by the framing the Aspiration 2022 strategy. By all this I prefer buy call on Indian Hotels Company Ltd.